Purge
by Unexpectedtale
Summary: Sera Vane is a survivor. She may only be 11 years old, but damned if she's going to let the Imps and the...creatures aboard the Imperial Prison barge, Purge, stop her from getting away.
1. Alone

Dramatis Personae:

Aur Myss; prisoner (Delphanian male)

Jareth Sartoris; captain of the guard, Imperial Prison Barge Purge (human male)

Kale Longo; teen prisoner (human male)

Sera Vane; lost survivor (human female)

Trig Longo; teen prisoner (human male)

Waste; 2- 1B surgical droid

Zahara Cody; chief medical officer, Imperial Prison Barge Purge (human female)

7.5 BBY

-000-

Sera whimpered as the needle was ripped from her arm by one of the stern-faced doctors that had made up her world for the uncountable amount of time that had passed since she, and her family had been swept up by the crew of the Vector.

Usually, the bio lab's 2-1b medical droid was the one to see to her tests; the only one the little girl spoke to. Today was different. Today it was Clemson, assistant to the chief medical officer.

The young blond pulled her out of the cold metal chair so quickly, it made Sera's head spin. "Shh!" Clemson half dragged the skinny waif across the biolab, "we should have listened to your father."

Sera shook her head, sending messy brown hair swinging like a curtain. The sedatives were still slowing her down, 'I don't have a father...'

She blinked and shook her head again, desperately wishing that the 2-1b was back; it always remembered to return her plasspecs to her. She squinted up at the man, vision blurry like it always was without her specs, not liking the barely suppressed note of panic in his voice.

Her throat was still sore from the morning's tests and she only managed to croak hoarsely. Clemson seemed to realise he was gripping her wrist right enough to bruise and he stopped, bending down to look the 12 year old in the eye,"You have to trust me now. I'm sorry."

Sera opened her mouth, but squeaked when he wrapped his hands around her waist and lifted her up into one of the overhead hatches of the air ducts. "Stay quiet no matter what kid."

Something began pounding on door to the biolab, something angry. The noise grew louder and Sera scrabbled backward into the darkness.


	2. Purge

Trig Longo lay back on his bunk; just like he did every night; trying to filter out the sounds of the other prisoners enough to, if not sleep, then at least rest a little. He hated nighttime, or what passed for it here on the rickety old prison barge he and his family had been trapped on for the past 8 standard weeks.

The youngster was sure that between the shadows and occasional screams of other inmates, he was going quietly mad from lack of sleep. There was so much on his mind tonight Trig knew he wouldn't be able to sleep.

He leaned up on his elbows, propping his torso up and quietly blowing an errant lock of his deep reddish hair out of his face. Trig knew he should be grateful that they were in Gen Pop, rather than the more dangerous levels below them; but he still found it unsettling.

From the pair of rodians in the cell opposite (who always seemed to be plotting something), to the terrible food, to the relentless, unending rumble of the thrusters; just on the edge of audition - everything seemed to conspire against him getting a solid night's sleep.

Trig smiled ruefully as his listened to his older brother's deep and even breathing. Kale, five years older than him, and ten times more comfortable here; never seemed to have issues sleeping. Even since their father's death almost two weeks ago, Kale still slept like a log.

"Trig?" His brother's voice floated out of the darkness and Trig had to gulp back his cry of surprise. Trig twisted and saw Kale's sleep-rumpled face, pale in the shadowed depths of their cell.

"What's wrong?"

Trig cleared his throat; hating the way it would break at the most embarrassing times, "Nothing." _'Everything' _a voice inside him whispered.

Kale gave him a flat look, not really convinced. "You worried about tomorrow?"

Trig tried to reply with the same insouciant bravado that his father and brother had worn like a second skin, "Me? Come on Kale. Of course not." He replied, but that little voice whispered '_You __**are**__ worried. Shouldn't tell lies Trig_.'

Kale looked at his little brother who should be only worrying about girls and the shenanigans that had made up a large part of Kale's early years of being a teenager; not stuck in a durasteel cage like an animal. "It's okay if you are," he snorted, "you'd be crazy not to be."

Trig snapped back a denial instantly, knowing that if Kale thought even for a second, that he was having second thoughts, he would leave Trig behind. And now that there was only the two of them; being left behind meant being left alone - and that was unthinkable.

Trig scowled when his brother brought up his age. Again. He was going to be 14 in a month for frack's sake! "Well, sleep on it, see if you feel different in the morning …" Kale yawned and drifted back to sleep in moments.

Trig both admired and envied his ability to sleep with so little effort. A scream spiralled up from the depths of Gen Pop, an inmate having another nightmare, he tried to tell himself. He thought it was different though; it almost sounded like the unknown screamer was in pain; or under attack. Trig sighed; sleep was clearly not on the cards for tonight.

-000-

Sera woke with a hastily stifled scream. The nightmare of hands ripping poor Clemson apart hadn't actually happened in front of her; but she'd heard enough back then to fill in the blanks. That had been almost 9 weeks ago and now she was considerably thinner and more at home in the air ducts than she had been in the wide corridors between the biolab and her cell.

Something had woken her, something had changed in the ship. Something dark was coming.

Sera sighed and pulled out the flimsy map of the ship she had drawn over the long nightmare cycle since that day. She traced a finger from where her 'nest' was, to the closest storeroom that she hoped still had supplies. Even on starvation rations, the food was quickly running out.

Her stomach growled painfully, '_Am I hungry? Or is it __**that**__ feeling again?'_ Sera mused as she refolded the map. Perhaps rescue was on its way after all.

Sera sighed and started to crawl through the vents in search of just one more ration pack. Usually she avoided the cavernous hangar bay like the plague; but perhaps it would be worth risking if help really was on the way...

As she travelled, she tried to push the whispers in her head out of her mind. Her family must all be dead now. All gone, just like everyone else apart from _them_.


	3. Meat Nest

Trig slouched in the canteen; listlessly poking at the suspicious 'food' on his plate. This was nothing like the breakfasts he remembered from his old life with his father and brother back home on Cimarosa.  
His father, Von Longo, had been a spectacular cook; able to make anything delicious.  
Trig eyed the colourless goo with distrust; he wasn't sure this was even edible.  
He prodded the meat nest with a fork and scrubbed a hand through his dark red hair in disappointment when it failed to turn into something resembling what breakfast should be.  
His brother was shovelling the goo and wads of gristle into his mouth with unsettling gusto. Trig wasn't sure if he could even watch him any more.  
"Do you think we'll get better food when we get to the detention moon Kale?" Trig was acutely aware that, already on the thin side of average before the were scooped up, he couldn't afford to keep skipping meals.  
Kale; tall, broad, and completely confident; grinned at his really little brother, "you're more of an appetiser for the convicts where we're going."  
Trig smiled and put his fork down; admitting defeat.  
"So..." Kale cut his dark blue gaze toward the unidentifiable mass on Trig's tray, "you gonna eat that?"

-000-

Sera paused at the exit to the ventilation system on this level of the ship, pushing her plasspecs higher up the narrow bridge of her nose.  
She froze, peering out of the grille, seeming to scent the air like a young deer on its first trip away from safety.  
Sera wasn't smelling though; she was listening. The absolute stillness of the ship unnerved her, even now. With her heart jumping like a jakrab in her chest, the girl pushed open the duct's cover and dropped to the durasteel walkway below.  
Even without boots or shoes, the noise of her landing rang through the dead corridors. Sera swore and fled as quietly as she could, bare feet slapping against the freezing cold metal.  
She couldn't tell if her less than graceful landing had been heard by _them_; but she wasn't taking any chances. Doors flashed past her on either side of the dimly lit corridor, black labels whizzing by her peripheral vision.  
Part of her mind, the small sane part of who she had been before her incarceration, rebelled at the thought of what she was hiding from; from the reality of feeling hungry all the time; from the constant, unending fear.  
The larger part of her mind was now functioning at a level only just above those things in the shadows.  
When she reached storage locker 221-B3; Sera pulled out a datapad she'd scavenged from the room she refused to acknowledge existed and plugged the cable into the port just below the locking plate. A few taps on the cracked screen was all that was needed to gain access.  
As the door swooshed open Sera slipped inside and was pulling her pack off her skinny shoulders before the servo motors had finished pulling the door into its recess.  
She was out of luck today though; the shelves had been stripped bare and there was nothing edible left.  
Sera sighed and slumped to the floor at the bottom of one of the racks of shelves. She knew that she couldn't afford to keep burning calories at the rate she was. Even with her slowed metabolism due to the meditation exercises she had been taught by her foster family, Sera knew time was running out for her.  
She heard that insidious whisper in her head again; the one that kept telling her to just lie down and stop fighting.  
'_Little girl, young and tender. I know what lurks in the heart of man. Need to feed. Hunger. Want to live!'_  
Sera swore; that carking voice taunted her, but only when _it _was near. She didn't want to be trapped again, but couldn't be sure she'd reach one of her bolt holes in time.  
Sera scrambled to her feet and slapped at the button to close the door. Perfect darkness engulfed her as soon as the hatchway slid shut. She forced herself to stop panting, trying not to make a sound.  
She thumbed open the datapad's lid and used the weak light to illuminate the small room. There! At floor level was a tiny hatch that surely led to either maintenance tunnels, or the nest of mouse droids. Either way; it was a better bet than waiting in the dark.

-000-

As the end of mealtime alarm blared through the mess hall, Kale nodded to Trig and they slowed their progress through the unwashed masses just enough to drop toward the back; but not enough to be noticed by the increasingly short-tempered guards.  
Trig saw his big brother's posture change subtly; he straightened and became more watchful.  
"You ready for this?" Kale asked, barely moving his lips.  
"Sure," Trig replied, nodding slightly; but still feeling a little fluttery minnow of doubt in the pit between his stomach and his chest, "You?"  
Kale responded, "Full on." Nothing about Kale's face seemed to indicate that he was speaking at all. "Remember when we get down there, it's gonna be close quarters. Whatever you do, always maintain eye contact. Don't look away for a second."  
Trig nodded, "Got it."  
"And if anything starts to feel wrong about it, and I mean anything whatsoever, we just walk away." Trig felt his handsome older brother's eyes rest on him for a moment before Kale continued, "I don't think Sixtus would try anything, but I can't vouch for Myss. Dad never trusted him."  
"Maybe …" Trig started, and stopped himself. He realized that he was about to suggest calling off the whole deal, not because he was nervous— although he certainly was— but because Kale seemed to be having second thoughts, too.  
"We can do this," Kale went on. "Dad taught us everything we need to know. The whole thing should take no more than a minute or two, and we'll be back out of there and back in full view. Any longer than that and it gets dangerous." He jerked his head around and looked hard at Trig. "And I go first. Clear?"  
Trig nodded in agreement and felt a hand drop on his shoulder, stopping him in his tracks.


	4. Where the bad air goes

Trig turned and looked up at the figure standing in front of him.  
"You." It was one of the many corrections officers whose name he didn't remember. The guard scowled at the boy, peering at him through a pair of tinted, decidedly nonregulation optic shields. "What are you doing all the way back here?"  
The little flutter of fear made itself known again; Trig tried to answer but found his reply lodged somewhere just beneath his gullet.  
Kale stepped in, offering up an easy, disarming smile. "Just walking, sir."

Clearly neither charmed, nor impressed, the guard simply ignored Kale; "Was I talking to you, convict?" the guard said, and without waiting for an answer, pivoted his attention back to Trig. "Well?"  
"He's right, sir," Trig said. "We were just walking."  
"What, you're too good to move along with the rest of the scum?"  
"We try to avoid scum whenever possible," Trig said, and then added, "Sir." As soon as the words were out if his mouth; Trig wished he could claw them back, or at least have his father's easy way with words.  
The guard's eyes slitted behind the polarised lenses. "You yanking me, convict?"  
"No, sir." Trig tried his best to look as unthreatening as possible; not that he could ever be considered to be anything other than a Kowakian monkey lizard compared to the decidedly more dangerous inmates aboard the Purge.  
"'Cause the last maggot that yanked me's doing a month in the hole." "Understood, sir." '_Please, please, please just go._' Trig thought fervently, fingers crossed for luck behind his back.  
The guard glowered at him, twitching his head slightly to one side as if searching out some angle at which Trig's unblemished teenage face might somehow become threatening, or even make sense, amid this larger mass of incarcerated criminals. The guard just shook his head. "Move along," the guard muttered, and walked away.

The moment they were out of earshot, Kale elbowed Trig in the shoulder. "We try to avoid scum whenever possible?" A tiny grin dimpled the corners of Kale's mouth. "What, did you just make that up on the spot?" Trig was unable to restrain a smile of his own. It felt liberating, probably because he couldn't remember the last time he'd allowed himself anything less than a troubled grimace. "You think he bought it?" "I think you almost bought it." Kale reached up without looking over and tousled his fingers through Trig's hair. "Keep smarting off like that, convict, and you will be down in solitary with the real dangerous types."  
"I hear there's a couple of hard guys down there now locked up tight," Trig said. "Could be our future customers." Kale favoured him with a glance of approval. "Maybe there's more of Dad in you than I thought."  
Trig mock glared at his brother and growled, "Let's just get on with it yeah?"

-000-

As Sera crawled deeper into the rotten heart of the forsaken ship, she had to stop and rest more often than she had had to even a few days before.  
The air was getting thicker and harder to breathe the further from supply room 221-B3 she got. '_I suppose it was only a matter of time before the O2 scrubbers started to get a bit ropey without all those engineers._'  
Sera just hoped that failing equipment was all that was going wrong, and that the stench of decay that was growing stronger was only due to dirty scrubbers and not that she'd gotten turned around or was close to another one of those charnel rooms.  
Sera reached a branch of the tunnel and pulled out her flimsy map again. She checked her makeshift blueprints and thought she knew where she was. If she took the left hand fork; she should eventually come out by the biolabs. Normally she avoided those like the plague, too many bad memories, but that strange tugging feeling was urging her on. The whispering voices had faded away as well, although she couldn't pinpoint exactly when they had stopped.  
She tsked at her sloppiness and started to wiggle along the new tunnel, pushing her depressingly empty pack in front of her.

-000-

Trig sensed Kale slowing his pace, dropping back several strides, scarcely enough to be noticed, and adjusted his step to match his brother's. Up ahead the main concourse broke off into three prongs, branching off into a series of lesser throughways that crisscrossed the detention levels at every imaginable vector and angle. During his time aboard, Trig had made it his business to learn as much about the Purge's layout as possible. Eavesdropping on conversations between guards and maintenance droids, he'd learned early on that there were six main detention levels, each one housing about twenty to thirty individual holding cells. Above that was the mess hall, followed by the admin offices, prison staff quarters, and the infirmary. Nobody talked much about solitary, down at the bottom of the barge— nor was there much speculation about the literally hundreds of meters of narrow access routes, sublevels, and dimly lit concourses that honeycombed every level.  
Falling into single file, Kale and Trig slipped through an open gateway, striding along the damp prefab walls, down a flight of steps, deeper in the jaundiced bowels of Gen Pop. The air down here immediately became thicker, darker, and dramatically less breathable, on its way to an array of refurbished air scrubbers before circulating back through the barge.  
"Well, well," a voice said. "The Longo brothers ride again."  
Trig caught a quick breath, hoping it didn't sound like a gasp. In front of him, Kale froze, instinctively extending a hand behind him to either stop or shield his younger brother, and both of them peered into the open space that made up their immediate future.  
Trig's eyes were already adapted to the low level of light and he could already make out the forms of several inmates, all members of the Delphanian Face Gang, and in front of them, Aur Myss.  
The sneering delphanian grimaced, the row of mismatched tribal piercings dangling from his drooping lower lip, collected like trophies from all the other crew leaders while Myss and his boss, Sixtus Cleft, had consolidated the Face Gang's position as the Purge's primary prison crew. "You're right on time," Myss said, piercings jingling as he spoke.  
Kale nodded. "We're always prompt."

"An admirable trait for a prison rat."

"That's why you chose to do business with us." Kale replied smoothly; not seeing the point in antagonising Myss; even though this was not how he had expected their first contact without his father, Von Longo, at the helm.  
"One of many reasons," Myss said, "I'm sure."  
Kale smiled. "Did you bring the payment?"  
"Oh yes." Myss produced a sibilant gurgle that might have been laughter, and extended one spade-claw hand, pointing down at the empty floor in front of him. "It's right there in front of you. Don't you see it?"  
Trig sensed, Kale stiffening, preparing for trouble, and willed him to stay calm. It appeared to work. For the time being at least, Kale kept his posture erect and didn't look away, careful to keep his own voice steady and calm. "Is this some kind of a joke?"  
Trig stopped listening then, taking the time to really observe the tableau in front of him.  
Myss stood in the centre of the space, flanked by two other delphanians that Trig didn't know or recognise. Sixtus wasn't there however, and Trig recalled the terrible screams from the previous night. He wouldn't put it past the psychopathic Myss to take out his own gang's leader in order to take power for himself.  
Kale was standing close to the three; far too close for Trig's peace of mind, but he didn't dare move or speak, lest he break the stalemate into a thousand shimmering pieces.  
Kale's body language suddenly shifted, tensing, and then his brother lunged forward and ripped the piercings from Myss's ugly maw.  
The Delphanian shrieked in surprise and pain and one of his hands flew up to cover his wounded lips and nose. Simultaneously the two inmates who had been flanking him burst forward in a rush, and Kale grabbed his brother's shoulder, spun him hard around, and thrust him back in the direction they'd come.  
"Run!" Kale shouted, and they fled, Trig first, Kale behind him, both of them flying back up the corridor they'd just come down.  
Behind them the Delphanians' boots clanged off the metal floor, and Trig could hear them shouting, coming closer. There was no way he and his brother could possibly outrun them. And even if by some quirk of fate they did escape, Aur Myss would be waiting for them tomorrow and the next day and— Rounding the bend, Trig almost collided with a guard standing directly in front of him. The ICO put up both hands in a reflexive warding-off gesture, and the sudden stop that kept Trig from slamming into him was followed an instant later by Kale hitting him from behind. "What's going on here?" the guard asked.  
"Nothing, sir, we just …" Trig started, and it occurred to him that there was no reason why the guards should be this far down the walkways to begin with. And then, between the pounding rhythm of his own heart, he realized something else. The Purge had fallen absolutely silent. The vibrations that had unsettled him, broadcasting their emanations up through the bones of his feet, ankles, and knees, had gone completely still. For the first time since he'd come aboard, the engines had stopped.


	5. Medbay

"Hey, Waste," Zahara Cody said. "Are we there yet?"  
The 2-1B surgical droid looked up at her with a blank stare. It had been in the process of injecting a syringe of kolto into the left arm of the Dug inmate lying in the oversized medcenter bunk between them. Within seconds of receiving the injection, the Dug writhed and rolled up onto its back, twitching its lower legs beneath the sheet, then stiffened and lapsed into a very convincing state of rigor mortis. "Congratulations," Zahara said, "you killed him. Looks like you saved the Empire another four hundred credits." Reaching over, she tapped the surgical droid on the shoulder. "Job well done. Way to be a team player."

The 2- 1B looked at her in something like alarm. "But I didn't— " the droid protested.  
"Let me do a quick test, just to confirm time of death." Zahara reached down and rolled the Dug sideways, pushing it over until it fell out of bed with a thud. Seconds later, the inmate sat up with a squeal of displeasure, scuttling back up to its bunk where it glared at her balefully and muttered some black condemnatory oath under its breath. "Looks like another miracle recovery," Zahara said, and smiled. "Unless I'm mistaken, this particular patient's main complaint is with the food." Zahara glanced at the Dug. "And maybe one of the several different prison gangs that want his scalp for overdue loan payments. That's about right, isn't it, Tugnut?" The Dug snarled and jerked one hand up in a gesture that transcended language barriers, then went back to faking its own death.  
She looked back at the 2- 1B. "You're aware, Waste, that you still haven't answered my initial question?"  
"Excuse me?"  
"Are we there yet?"  
"Dr. Cody, if you're referring to our ETA at Detention Moon Gradient Seven— "

Zahara blew a curly lock of brown hair out of her eyes, "The Purge is a prison barge, Waste. Where else would we be headed? Wild Space?" She waited patiently to see if the 2- 1B was going to favor her with another of its flat, implacable glances. Throughout the last three months of working alongside the droid, Zahara Cody had come to think of herself as a connoisseur of such reactions.  
"We've already dropped out of hyperspace. Our engines have been stopped for almost an hour now and we're just sitting here stock-still, so that can only mean one thing, right? We must be there."  
"Actually, Doctor, my uplink to the navicomputer indicates that— "  
"Hey, Doc," A blunt finger reached out from behind Zahara and prodded her somewhere in the vicinity of her lower spine. "We there yet?"

Zahara looked over at the Devaronian inmate sprawled languorously on his side on the bed behind her, then turned back at her surgical droid.  
"See, Waste? It's the question on everyone's lips." She said with a smile audible in her cultured tone.  
"No, I'm serious, Doc," the Devaronian groaned, peering up at her from the depths of melancholy. His right horn had been snapped off midtrunk, giving his face a peculiarly lopsided look, and he poked himself in the abdomen and groaned. "One of my livers is going bad, I can feel it. Thinking maybe I caught something in the shower." His normally gruff voice had taken on a bit of a whining tone.  
"May I offer a more likely diagnosis?" The 2-1B scurried eagerly around Zahara, already exchanging tools in its servogrips as the internal components of its diagnostic computer flickered beneath its torso sheath. "Liver damage in your species is not uncommon. In many cases your silver-based blood results in depleted oxygen due to the low- level addiction to the recreational use of— "  
"Hey, interface." The Devaronian sat up, suddenly the robust picture of perfect health and vigour, and grabbed the 2-1B's pincer. "What are you saying about my species?"  
"Easy, Gat, he doesn't mean anything by it." Zahara placed a hand on the inmate's wrist until he released the droid. Then, turning to the 2-1B: "Waste, why don't you go check out what's happening with the Trandoshan in B-seventeen, huh? His temp's up again and I don't like the last white counts I saw this morning. I doubt he'll make it through today."  
"Oh, I concur." The droid brightened. "According to my programming at Rhinnal State Medical Academy— "

"Right. So I'll meet you later for afternoon rounds, all right?" The olive-skinned doctor interrupted, having heard that particular story at least 500 times in the past 8 weeks.  
The 2-1B hesitated, seeming briefly to entertain the idea of objecting, then walked away clucking softly to itself in dismay.  
The medic watched it go, its gangling legs and oversized feet passing between the rows of bunks that lined the infirmary on either side.  
As chief medical officer on the Purge, she knew that at any given time a large percentage of her patients were either prolonging their stay in medbay or faking it entirely to stay out of Gen Pop. "You okay, Doc?" Looking down, she realized that the Devaronian was watching her from his bed, fidgeting nonchalantly with his broken horn. "I said, you all right? You look a little, I dunno— "  
Zahara murmured a non-committal reply, her mind still circling around her mental inventory of the medbay's dwindling supplies.  
The inmate glanced off in the direction that the surgical droid had gone. "That bucket of bolts won't hold it against me, you think?"  
"Who, Waste?" She smiled. "Believe me, he's a paragon of scientific objectivity. Just throw some obscure symptoms at him and he'll be your best friend."  
"You really think we're almost there?"

She shrugged. "I don't know. You know how it is. Nobody tells me anything."

"Right," the Devish said, and shook his head with a chuckle.  
Aboard the barge, there were a few phrases that circulated among Gen Pop endlessly: _Are we there yet? _and _They expect us to eat this stuff? _were chief among them, but _Nobody tells me anything_ was also a big favorite.  
Over months of service, Zahara had adopted these phrases as well, much to the chagrin of the warden and many of the ICOs, most of whom held themselves up as an example of superior species. Zahara knew what they said about her. Among the guards, no real effort was made to keep it subtle. Too much time spent down in the medbay with the scum and droids and the little rich girl had started to go native, preferring the company of inmates and synthetics to her own kind: corrections officers and stormtroopers. Most of the guards had stopped talking to her completely after the situation two weeks ago.

She didn't suppose she blamed them. They were a notoriously tight-knit group and seemed to function with a groupthink that she found downright nauseating. Even the inmates— her regulars, the ones she saw on a daily basis— had noticed a change in the way she'd started spending extra time training Waste— preparing the 2- 1B not as her assistant anymore, but as her replacement. And although there hadn't been any official response from the warden, she could only assume that he'd received her resignation. After all, she'd walked into his office and slammed it down on his desk. There was no way she could keep working here. Not after what happened with Von Longo.

-000-

_'Damn damn damn!'_ She was karked and she knew it. Sera was lost.  
She must have gotten turned around down here seeing as the fine folks who had built the damn ship hadn't seen fit to label the interior of their maintenance tunnels.  
"That's it! I'm getting out at the next exit, whether it's the hangar or not!" Sera muttered to herself as she consulted her homemade map again.  
She was fully aware that there was likely a proper map on the datapad, but she didn't want to waste the charge to find out. It was getting harder to find safe places to rest long enough to top it up.  
Sera paused, "Besides. I spent ages on that sith forsaken map!"  
The youngster pushed on the grille on her left and dropped down into the dimly-lit room below.

-000-

Take a girl from a wealthy family of Corellian financiers and tell her she'll never have a care in the world. Ship her off to the best schools, tell her there's a spot waiting for her in the InterGalactic Banking Clan, all she has to do is not mess up. Keep her nose clean, uphold the highest standards of politics, culture, and good manners, and ignore the fact that compared with what she's used to, 99 percent of the galaxy is still hungry, sick, and uneducated. Embrace the Empire with its quaint lack of diplomatic subtlety and strive to overlook the increasingly uncomfortable squeeze of Lord Vader's ever-tightening fist.  
Looking through the medbay again, Zahara felt a thin tremor of uncertainty steal over her and willed it away. But like most aspects of her personality, it didn't go without a fight.

Instead, unbidden, the image of Von Longo floated back up into her memory, the man's bloody face trying to talk to her through the ventilator, clutching her hand in both of his, asking to see his boys one last time. Begging her to bring them to him so that he could speak to them in private.

Moments later, the cloud of heavy menace emerged behind her back and she turned to see Jareth Sartoris, head of the guards, close enough that she could actually smell his skin, speaking through thin lips that hardly seemed to move. "Paying your respects, Doctor?"

Longo had died later that day, and Zahara Cody decided that she had flown her last voyage with the Purge and the Empire. The next step would be contacting her parents and letting them know she was coming home. Luxurious clothing and fine crystal had never been her first choice, but at least she'd be able to sleep at night. And in the evenings she would sit down to dinner with the wealthy and proud and forget about what had happened with Von Longo and Jareth Sartoris. Is this really what you want?  
Zahara shook it off. In any case, she'd always assumed she'd have lots of time to think about it before the barge got where it was going. Plenty of time to make up her mind. Except now the engines had stopped— had been stopped for over an hour. From across the infirmary, another voice, one of the other inmates, cried out, "Hey, Doc— are we there yet?"

This time, Zahara didn't answer.


	6. Word

Sera grinned as she saw the telltale glow of a still-functioning console. She half-crept; half-skipped over to the grey metal panel, fingers dancing over the buttons and switches.  
She _loved_ tech; whether that be consoles, datapads, or even droids and mechanicals. Sera plugged the datapad into the console port and clapped quietly as the charging symbol lit up.  
She decided to explore a little as she waited for her lifeline to recharge.  
Sera rummaged through a heap of discarded lab coats and "Yes!" Her questing fingers had found a handful of dessert flavoured rat packs. Her stomach loudly demanded attention and she gave in; ripping open the foil and taking a massive bite, letting the sticky sweetness flood her senses.  
Momentarily sated, she carried on her exploration of the medlab she'd dropped into; as she rounded the bank of consoles, the half-eaten snack dropped unheeded to the durasteel floor.

-000-

Jareth Sartoris made his way down the narrow gangway outside the guards' quarters, massaging his temples as he walked. He had a headache, nothing new there, but this one was something special, a vise grip across his temporal lobes that made him feel like he'd been gassed with some kind of low-grade neurotoxin in his sleep.  
He'd been awake even before the warden's summons came through. After working third shift last night, he'd toppled into his bunk early this morning and lapsed into restless unconsciousness, but two hours later the abrupt silence had awakened him, the feeling of his tightly coiled world spinning off its axis.

They were seven standard days out. So why had the engines fallen silent? Sartoris had gotten dressed, grabbed some lukewarm caf and a reheated bantha patty from the mess, and headed down the hall toward the warden's office, hoping to build up enough mindless momentum to keep him going as far as he needed. To his right the turbolift doors opened.

Three other guards— Vesek, Austin, and some pompadoured newbie— came out, falling into step behind him.  
Sartoris didn't break stride or even glance back at them. "Me and the guys, Cap," Austin's voice piped up, "we were, you know, wondering if you could shed a little light on what's going on."

Sartoris shook his head, still not looking back. "What's that?"  
"I heard we blew out both thrusters completely," Vesek put in. "Word is we're just sitting here somewhere outside the Unknown Regions, waiting for a tow."  
Austin sniggered. "Barge full of stranded convicts, I'm sure we're top priority for the Empire. Maybe they'll just decide to leave us drifting out here, right?"  
"Ask the rook." Austin poked the pompadoured guard walking in front of him. "Hey, Armitage, you think they'll rescue us?" He sniggered, not waiting for the kid to respond. "He'd probably like it. Suits his artistic temperament , right, Armitage?"

The newbie just ignored him and kept walking. "How long did you spend on your hair this morning, rook? You hoping Dr. Cody's taken an interest?"  
"All right." Sartoris snapped a glance up at them. "Belay that noise, understand?" Nobody spoke the rest of the way to the warden's office.

-000-

She couldn't believe it. She'd tried _so_ hard not to come back to this place. On the far wall was a clear transparasteel cell just like the one she and the others who had been squatting in the ruins of Marfa had been kept in when they weren't being prodded by those damn Imps.  
She padded over to it, against the screams of her better judgement. Sera rested one small hand against the cold surface and peered into the cell. This one hadn't been hers; but she thought she recognised the green rags on the floor as belonging to the oldest of the street kids who had been abandoned on Marfa by the pit boss who had promised to return for them.  
Sera squinted and rested her forehead against the panel, plasspecs awkwardly pressed against her face. She wasn't entirely sure, but had those raggedy bits of cloth moved just then, or had that been a trick of the sporadic emergency lights?  
She cupped her hands around her eyes to try and filter out the glare, but the console beeped and the moment was gone.  
Sera trotted back to the control pod and tapped on the datapad's screen, **3 files ready to download. Commence download: Y/N?**  
She hit the affirmative choice, "After all, they might be holos." and the console hummed in what she imagined to be agreement. Sera decided to check the lockers ranged along the far wall of the holding area, there may be weapons, or hopefully, some more food or better yet some of those canisters of caf that the technicians had never seemed to be able to function without.  
The first two were empty apart from wrappers and the accumulated detritus of months in space.  
The third locker contained a rather impressive array of adult magazines and Sera paged through a few; turning the mags around a few times; trying to make sense of the pictures.

A key card slipped out of one titled 'Hot Ships' and she retrieved it before stuffing a few of the magazines into her pack. You never knew when those sorts of things would come in handy. _'Like if you can't get to a 'fresher.'_ She thought to herself as she padded over to the final bank of lockers.

-000-

Warden Kloth's office had been tricked out to look larger than it actually was— light colors, holomurals, and a colossal rectilinear viewscreen facing out the star-strewn expanse— but Sartoris had always found the effect paradoxically oppressive. Some time ago, he'd noticed a blown voxel in the corner of the desert landscape above Kloth's desk, a missed stitch in the digital fabric. Ever since then, something about the secondhand technology seemed to be pushing in on him, and now his eyes always felt as if they were being tricked, lulled into a false sense of openness.

"First the bad news," Kloth said. He was standing in his usual position, hands clasped behind his back, looking out the viewscreen. "Our thrusters are seriously damaged— probably beyond repair. And as I'm sure you know, we're still seven standard days out from our destination. However," the warden continued. "There is a positive side." Kloth turned slowly to face them.

His face was the usual blunt bureaucratic hatchet, slightly curved and angular upper lip, gray-rimmed eyes, and bluish silver bags of freshly shaven cheeks. Only after spending a certain amount of time with the man did you come to know the soft thing residing within that calculated outer shell, a spineless, gelatinous creature that exuded nothing so much as the tremulous anxiety of being drawn out and exposed.

"It seems the navicomputer has identified an Imperial vessel," Kloth said, "a Star Destroyer actually, within this same system. While our attempts to make contact have met with no reply, we do have enough power to make our approach." He paused here, apparently in anticipation of applause or at least a round of relieved sighs, but Sartoris and the others just looked at him.  
"A Destroyer?" Austin asked. "And they're not responding to our call?" Kloth didn't answer for a moment. He touched his chin, fingering it thoughtfully, a pompous gesture Sartoris had seen a thousand times and had come to loathe in his own special way.  
"There's more to it than that," the warden said. "According to our bioscans, there's only a handful of lifeforms on board."  
"How many's a handful?" Vesek wanted to know.  
"Ten, perhaps twelve."  
"Ten or twelve?" Vesek shook his head in disbelief. "Sounds like a scanner issue. Destroyers can carry a crew of ten thousand or more."  
"Thank you," Kloth said drily. "I'm well aware of the standard Imperial specs."

"Sorry, sir. It's just, either our equipment is undergoing some serious malfunction, or …"  
"Or there's something else going on up there." It was the first time Sartoris had spoken in the office, and he was surprised at the hoarseness in his voice. "Something that we don't want any part of."

The others all turned to look at him. For what felt like a long time after that, no one spoke.

Then the warden cleared his throat. "What are you saying, Captain?"

"There's no reason the Empire would just abandon an entire Star Destroyer out here in the middle of nowhere without a good reason."

"Internal atmosphere diagnostics show no sign of any known toxin or contamination," Kloth said. "Of course it's always possible that our instruments are misreading how many lifeforms are on board. We screen for numerous variables, electrical brain activity, pulse, motion, any number of those things could skew the reading. In any case …" He smiled— a wholly unconvincing dramatization that ought to have involved invisible wires and hooks on either side of his mouth. "The most critical factor is that we may be able to salvage equipment for our thrusters and get back on course before we're completely behind schedule. To that end, I'll be sending a scouting party up— Captain Sartoris, along with ICOs Austin, Vesek, and Armitage and the mechanical engineers, to see what they can salvage. We anticipate docking within the hour. Questions?"  
There were none, and Kloth dismissed them in the usual fashion, by turning his back and letting them find their own way out. Sartoris was about to follow them when the warden's voice stopped him. "Captain?"

Stopping in the doorway, Sartoris drew a breath and felt the ache in his head become a deeper, more impacted pounding, like a gargantuan infected tooth somewhere in his frontal sinus. The door closed behind him, and it was just the two of them in what felt like an increasingly shrunken space.  
"Am I making a mistake, sending you up with these men?"  
"Excuse me, sir?"  
"Sir." Kloth's smile rematerialized, a wisp of its former self. "Now, that's a word I haven't heard from you in a long time, Captain. I'm aware that this voyage has been particularly… challenging for you personally," Kloth said, and Sartoris found himself hoping fervently that the warden wouldn't start stroking his chin again. If he did, Sartoris wasn't sure he could rein in the urge to punch him straight in his pompous and disaffected face. "After what happened two weeks ago, in many ways I expected your resignation right alongside Dr. Cody's."  
"Why?"  
"She saw you kill an inmate in cold blood."  
"It was her word against mine."  
"Your antiquated interrogation techniques aren't appropriate anymore, Captain. You're costing the Empire more information than you're retrieving."  
"All due respect, sir, Longo was a nobody, a grifter— " Sartoris protested.  
"We'll never know now, will we?" Sartoris felt his fists clenching at his sides until his nails burrowed into his palms, delivering stinging pain deep into the skin. "You want me off your boat, Warden? You just say the word."  
"On the contrary. You may consider this mission an opportunity to redeem yourself. If not in my eyes, then certainly in the eyes of the Empire to which we both owe so very much. Is that understood?"  
"Yes, sir." Kloth turned and scrutinized him as if for any sign of sarcasm or mockery. In his decades of service, Jareth Sartoris had been to the very edges of the galaxy, living under conditions he wouldn't wish on his worst enemy. He'd had to sleep in places and commit unspeakable deeds that he would've given entire body organs to forget. That simple yes, sir didn't taste any worse than any of the rest of it.  
"So we're clear, then?" Kloth asked. "Crystal," Sartoris replied, and when Kloth turned to show him his back, it wasn't a moment too soon.


	7. Dead Boys

Sera couldn't stop smiling. In the penultimate locker; she had hit the motherlode. Two pairs of socks, a clean (but far too big) shirt, a holo loaded with a spaceflight sim, and wonder of wonders, a hairbrush!  
She had returned to the centre console, relishing a safe haven despite the hastily-repressed memories of what she had endured in those cells. The second datapad was charging now and Sera hummed as she tugged the knots from her hair.  
Of course, there was one problem now. The canvas pack she'd appropriated was too small to fit all of her new treasure in, which meant it was time to make some tough decisions.  
She dumped out the contents of her pack onto the durasteel floor and took stock.  
Well the food and hairbrushes were the first things to go into the pack and Sera reluctantly discarded one of the pairs of socks. She could always come back again now she had a fully charged datapad with (as she had suspected) an interactive map of the Star Destroyer.  
That went into a pocket of the shirt along with the folded flimsy map.  
There was enough room for one, maybe two, more small items; but which ones to take?  
Sera toyed with the idea of leaving behind the large nerfhide bracelet that Ra'at, her Devoronian cell mate had entrusted to her with the proviso that she found his uncle Gat and let him know what had happened; in favour of the second datapad and holomag, but she couldn't bring herself to do it.

He hadn't deserved to die like he did; none of them had. Sera fastened the thick leather, embossed with a Devish clan name symbol, around her upper arm as it was the only part of her still large enough to hold it in place. '_There! That way I get to keep the mags too!'_ Sera smiled smugly and fished out her datapad from the shirt's massive pocket, "Seriously, was this guy actual the size of a wookiee?"  
She flipped open the lid of the datapad and brought up the map display. Sera saw that she hadn't been too far wrong with her own map; and that there was a breach down by the hangar. Seeing as no depressurisation alarms were blaring, she assumed that it must mean another vessel was linking to the Vector.  
'_Escape_.'  
That wonderful word echoed through her mind, briefly overriding all other thoughts and fears. Her gaze flicked back down to the holomap and she worked out the quickest way to the hangar.  
As she did a final check, casting one last forlorn look at the items she had to leave behind, Sera's freshly-socked foot struck something small; something that tinkled as it hit the back of the console's footwell.  
Something else moved in the darkness of the cell, sending shivers down Sera's spine. "Kark it!" She cursed and wiggled into the small gap and reached for the item. Her fingers closed around a small vial and she pocketed it as the thumping from the cell became louder, more insistent.  
Sera fled, not daring to look behind her where she was sure that whoever had been wearing those rags was now reaching for her.

-000-

Trig was stationed in his usual spot in the detention cell, gazing through the bars. Across the hall, directly opposite them, the two Rodian inmates who'd been there ever since he and Kale and their father had been brought aboard stood glowering back at him. Sometimes they muttered to each other in a language Trig didn't recognize, gesturing at the brothers and making noises that sounded like laughter.  
Silence for a moment, yawning … and then an anxious titter. It brought another, followed by a wild yodeling shriek, and the entire detention level erupted in an avalanche of chatter, louder than ever. Trig put his hands to his ears and turned back to the corridor. Then he jerked backward in surprise. "Wembly," he said. "You startled me."  
"Two dead boys," ICO Wembly said, with real regret. "And I liked you guys, too. Decent fellas. Not that it counts for much aboard this rotten bucket of garbage, but…"  
Trig tuned out the rest of Wembly's update; Kale was clearly on top of it and he still couldn't shake that bone deep feeling of unease that had crept over him in the unending lockdown since the Purge had stopped.


	8. Destroyer

Sartoris led the others up the stairs from the admin level to the barge's pilot station, walking across it up to the docking shaft. It was a cylinder that made his throat feel tight, particularly now that he was surrounded with nine men— Austin, Vesek, Armitage, along with four mechanical engineers and a pair of stormtroopers who'd swaggered in at the last second like they owned the place.

It was Austin, predictably, who ultimately broke the silence as they travelled up the umbilical turbo lift to the destroyer. "What do you think happened up there, Cap, that there's only ten life- forms still on board?"

"Warden says zero contamination," Vesek said. "So it's gotta be a malfunction on our end."

"So how come they never acknowledged?"

"Maybe our communications suite got scrambled along with our bioscanners."

"Negative." One of the engineers, Greeley, shook his head. "Communications are five-by. Ditto the scanners. It all checks out." He flicked his eyes upward. "It's just a ghost ship, that's all."

Austin gave him a look. "What?"

"A derelict, you know— ships get scuttled, abandoned by the fleet, left behind. Empire doesn't like to talk about 'em, but they're out there."

"So where's the crew?"

"Evacuated," Greeley said. "Or …" He moistened his lips and tried to shrug it off. "Who knows?"

"Great." Vesek sighed. "A Destroyer that can't fly on its own and we're going aboard to scavenge parts. there a plan for this one Cap, or are we just winging it?"

Sartoris assigned each of the men in front of him to one of two search parties with explicit instructions to keep in constant comm contact.

-000-

Sera decided to sacrifice safety for speed and skidded around the corridors in her new socks. She had hoped that she'd find the female Imp's locker room to find some shoes that might be small enough, but right now she was just overwhelmed with the thought of getting away.  
She stopped to catch her breath, unused to such a high level of exertion. Her hands shook as she opened her datapad and focussed in on the little red dots that were spreading out from the hangar.  
One group of five was heading toward the experimental medbays, "No, no, no! Not safe! Not safe!" She yelled at the device; trying to find a comm link option in the menus.  
She saw a couple of the dots break away from the group, drawing ever closer to the bad place.  
Sera hissed a particularly vehement Devaronian curse under her breath and started running again; if she didn't stop again, she might be able to save enough of them to be able to pilot whatever vessel they'd come from.


	9. Lung Windows

In fact, it was her newly-found socks that saved Sera's life when she reached Bio-Lab 177. The door whooshed open and a man in the uniform of an Imperial Corrections Officer fell back; hands clutching the wound on his neck.

Sera tried to stop when she heard the terrible ululating cries coming from the vat inside, but the woollen stockings failed to find purchase on the now blood-slick floor, and she skidded sideways, tumbling to the durasteel panelled walkway. The thing that had attacked the poor schlub with the impressive hair, lurched out of the dark room grabbing at the empty air where the youngster had been a few seconds before. Sera scrambled to her feet again, hands slipping in the warm puddle of gore, gagging at the stench. Panic slowed her sense of time and Sera fled from the scene as fast as she could. Knowing that the dying man's screams and the siren call of that damn vat of still-living lungs (she'd found it herself a few weeks earlier and did not need to see it again); would draw others close. Sera headed straight to the hangar, knowing the second group would now be her best bet for survival. She felt bad about leaving them to die here, but even more than that, Sera just wanted to live.

Their cell mates had been slowly but steadily disappearing and those that were left didn't seem healthy at all. Sera and another boy, even younger than she was, were the only ones who still seemed fit and healthy. Ra'at was even more ashen-skinned than usual and Sera was worried. In the years since they'd met in the slave pens of Nar Shardaa, they had been in some pretty dicey situations - this time though; it was looking less and less likely that they'd be making it though this one in one piece.

Sera shuffled over to Ra'at's corner of the clear observation cell and leaned against his shoulder, silently offering what comfort she could. They now knew that the cells were equipped with both video and audio recording equipment and only spoke if necessary. You never could tell if the Imps were listening in; or if one of those Force-damned doctors would use a snippet of information against you. Ra'at smiled faintly and let the little human get comfortable. The damn fever and sickness was in him now. He swore he could hear its dark voice whispering through the whooshing in his ears. If Sera knew what he was thinking, she'd be sure to worry after mocking his fanciful ideas fingers plucked at the thick leather band around his wrist; trying to undo the ties holding the embossed family crest in place.

Sera yawned tiredly; she always felt drained after the requisite medical sessions - sometimes both literally and figuratively. She truly thought they'd taken enough samples of her blood and anything else they could to build another Sera. She shuddered; that was the last thing they needed; more unwanted street kids.

A sudden and unexpected weight dropping into her lap made her jump. The familiar dark brown nerfhide leather band gleamed against the drab scrubs they had to wear.

"Ra'at? What are you doing?" Sera glanced up; not liking the direction her thoughts were going.

He looked down at her with fever bright eyes, and whispered to her in Deveronese, "Remember all the stories I told you about my uncle? I-I" he broke off to cough, "Please take this back home for me. Let him know what happened."

Sera glared at her friend, "Don't be ridiculous; take it back yourself you lazy crook."

"Thank you Ashla." Ra'at let his eyes close and wrapped his arm around his best friend; he knew it was likely for the last time.

It was no surprise when the medtechs came to take Ra'at away. Sera was left with a split lip and a black eye for trying to fight for him.

-000-

Sera was furious. She wanted to kill them all. Every single one of the twisted monsters who had done unspeakable things to the others. She'd finally seen what they had been doing. A few days after what she was thinking of as the Fall; where those things had annihilated the crew; she had been searching for food.

One of the doors she had been able to open with just the partially-broken hack tool she'd found, had been the room that the pompadoured idiot currently bleeding all over the floor had burst out of.

When Sera had tiptoed in all those weeks ago, she had seen the wall-sized vat filled with small fluttering shapes. Shapes that, on closer inspection, turned out to be dozens and dozens of carefully skinned and preserved sets of lungs.

Her feeling of terror and revulsion only grew as she noticed the damn things were still breathing. Numerous tubes fed in and out of the vat, some appeared to be bringing nutrients in; others were siphoning off a terrible black/grey fluid. Some of the lungs were a mottled grey and in noticeably worse shape than the healthy pink specimens.

Despite herself Sera had stepped closer, drawn in horrified fascination. As she came closer, she squinted; the lungs were labelled with names and dates. Her fingers shook as they came up to rest on the surprisingly warm transparasteel surface.

The fluttering organ beneath her hand was labelled with the identification number Ra'at had been given.

Sera only just managed to duck out of the way of the murderous thing coming for her, warned only by a momentary reflection in the still shiny surface.

As she dodged the once-human thing; Sera thanked the Force for her quick reflexes that had kept her skin intact through many scrapes since she had started her life as a criminal.

As she frantically tried to seal the door, she heard the lungs in the vat screaming. A sound that was echoed by innumerable things deep in the bowels of the ship.


	10. Descent

Jareth had had a brief moment of panic when he'd looked into the damn storeroom Greeley and that other mechanic had been searching and saw both of them had disappeared.

For those endless moments of complete irrational certainty that the two men had been taken; been devoured by whatever had decimated the 10,000 strong crew of this forsaken derelict - Jareth forgot to breathe.

"Greeley?"

He thumbed his commlink and tried to raise the other team. All he got was a hiss of white noise. "Dammit. Austin! Keep trying to get through to the other team. Even if Armitage was dumb enough to wander out of range; Phibes or Quartermass should still be able to follow that one bloody instruction." He barked at ICO Austin.

'So much for a dull search and shop mission.' He groused to himself, trying to ignore the headache that had come creeping back.

-000-

Sera ducked under a railing and pried up the grating to this level's maintenance access before scrambling in. _They_ were gathering; were waking up for dinner.

She was familiar enough with this part of the ship, that she didn't need to check either of her maps to know she was almost there.

As she crabwalked to the next exit, Sera listened to see if she'd been followed, or worse, that they had beaten her to the second group.

"Hey Greeley, do you think this part would be okay if we jury-rigged it?"

There! A muffled male voice that wasn't screaming in pain or terror! 'Score one for team I want to live.' The child thought dryly as she hurried to the grille and stood on tiptoes to peek through.

There were two sets of boots; one presumably belonging to 'Greeley'. So they were searching for spare parts, 'Could be scavengers; could be smugglers...although if their ship is broken, is it worth risking a blaster bolt to the face?'

She shivered, yes. Yes it was. Sera waited until the boots moved away a bit, before sliding the panel aside.

"Um. Hello?" She half-whispered, feeling a bit strange after not talking out loud for well over a month. She cleared her throat to try a less embarrassing attempt when a mostly-friendly face dropped into view.

"Greeley? There's a girl in the vent." He looked away and soon was joined by a second person.

"Huh."

The older one, she mentally named him 'not-Greeley' disappeared and she heard bits of metal start clinking.

"Don't mind him Kiddo, he just doesn't know how to talk to girls." Greeley smiled and stepped back to let Sera climb out. She looked around nervously, they were techie types; no weapons; but that wasn't necessarily a good thing now it was dinner time for _them_.

"So..." Greeley sat on one of the boxes scattered where they'd been looted by the two men, "are there more of you in the walls?"

"Just me. Are there more of you here?" Sera fiddled with the strap of her pack. "If there are, is there room for a tiny slicer to come too?"

She heard an angry voice calling Greeley's name; he ignored it and went back to talking to the girl. "What's your name Kid? I'm sure that Captain Sartoris will want that information before we take you down to the Purge."

"Sera."

"Is there a last name that goes with that?"

Sera shook her head, "I was a foundling and sold to a gang when I was four...ish."

Footsteps came a little way into the room and Greeley turned to pop his head above the biggest container, "I think we've got everything on the list now Captain." He paused and turned back to Sera holding out his hand, "We've also found a little something extra."

p-000-/p

Sartoris hated working with the technical crew. They saw the world so differently to how he and his men did.

Only an engineer would think that finding a child who had been hiding in the damn walls of the ship, wearing bloody clothes as 'a little something extra'! He didn't like it; but the warden would want to debrief her and after the incident with Von Longo, he was on thin enough ice as it was.

"Fine. She can come with us. Austin, Vesek; keep a close eye on her. Just in case."

Sera sighed; she wasn't escaping the Imps; but at least they had a working vessel, or at least a soon to be working vessel to get far away from this cursed ship.

It seemed that she wasn't the only one itching to get away; the irritable Captain ordered then to leave as soon as he decided the engineers had wasted enough time rescuing strays.

Sera shivered again as she passed the open area of the hangar; trying not to look at the ships, abandoned and casting frightening shadows.

As they all crammed into the turbo lift, Sera remembered the vial she'd picked up in the medlab. The engineers bickered good-naturedly with the other two ICOs and Sera examined the writing on the glass: BW anti-toxin 13

From what she'd managed to glean from conversations overheard between med techs and the few unencrypted files she'd retrieved from the datapad, she knew there was no cure for the curse that plagued the Vector.

Halfway down, Greeley dropped to his knees and was noisily sick.

Everyone but Sera shuffled as far away as possible from the pale engineer. 'Frack. He was the nice one as well.'

By the time the lift had reached the bottom of the docking umbilical, Austin and Vesek were coughing too.


	11. Triage

AN: Well I hope you are all still enjoying the ride - I would love to hear what you think :)

Dr Cody stopped in her tracks when Sartoris' group entered the infirmary. There were only five members of the original ten; but most surprising of all was the tiny figure Jareth Sartoris shoved toward her.

"Here." He scowled and rubbed his fingers on his temples where the headache of the morning had returned with a vengeance. "She's your problem now. Greeley and Vesek need your attention now. Austin's not much better." He turned and stomped out of medbay before Zahara could utter a word.

"The urchin glared at the departing officer before adroitly jumping out of the way as Greeley vomited again.

"Waste, let's get them into beds and see what's going on." Zahara stopped long enough to see that the droid was following her instructions before returning her gaze to the young girl in front of her, "What's your name?" Zahara crouched in front of her, taking in the blood-stained clothes and almost emaciated frame.

"Sera." Sera said in a cracked voice, clutching her backpack to her chest, suddenly feeling overwhelmed by the sheer number of people in the room. If what she feared was happening was indeed coming, she was getting very scared.

Zahara smiled and pointed to the bed next to Gat that had previously been occupied by the Dug Waste had 'killed'. "Hop up there and I'll come see you once I've seen to the others okay?"

Zahara stood and crossed to one of the cupboards, pulled out a spare pair of surgical scrubs and handed them to the girl. "There you go Sera, just pull back the curtain when you're changed." The very serious child took the clothes with a hint of a smile as disappeared behind the privacy curtain by the bed. "Gat," Dr Cody went to stand by the Devoronian, "keep an eye on her for me will you? Just 'til I get back okay."

Gat nodded once, still fingering the stump of his broken horn. "Sure thing Doc."

Zahara, finally answering the whining from ICO Austin, left them to it.

Sera tried to tune out the sounds around her, feeling inexplicably alone, despite being surrounded by dozens of people for the first time in almost three standard months.

Although there hadn't been a chance to visit a refresher; it was divine having a complete set of new _**clean**_ clothes! She pulled the white scrub top over her head and pulled back the curtain. Sera squeaked and flinched as the Devaronian in the next bed stared at her. Heart pounding, she sat down, and started to roll up the sleeves of the tunic. As she started on her left sleeve; Sera screamed as the red-skinned man leapt across the space between the bays and grabbed her arm in a tight, painful grip. "Where did you get this?" He growled and glared at the embossed leather cuff tied around her upper arm.

Sera looked up at him with huge, frightened green eyes and forced herself to speak. "What's it to you asshole?" She spat in almost perfect Devaronese.

'_Remember that little voice Sera? The one that says think before you speak?_' She had time to think before she was physically lifted from the bed by the Devaronian who bared his sharp teeth in what she hoped was a smile.

He replied in the same gutteral language, "Who taught you Devaronese little one?" before setting her down on the bed beside him. "You don't look like one of us Devish."

Sera glanced at the pretty doctor who had started to move toward them at her scream. She tried to relax and sighed when one of the guards who had been on the Vector started to argue with her and the older woman turned back to her patients seeing that Sera was in no immediate danger.

Sera ran her bruised fingers over the deep brown hide, "A friend taught me. He also gave me this before..." She stopped and started to untie the rawhide laces, "Ra'at was my best friend. He-"

Gat's huge hand swooped down and plucked the cuff from Sera's hands, he rubbed a thumb over the family crest and Sera could have sworn that he was fighting some strong emotion. She felt that funny feeling inside her again and decided to just throw caution to the winds.

"Do you know Uncle Blacknerf?" Sera asked, switching back to Basic; she tilted her head and was shocked at the sudden way all colour drained from his face.

"Is Ra'at - is my nephew still up in that ship?" Gat's voice was almost too quiet to hear over the increasing volume as more of the search party were succumbing to whatever sickness they had been exposed to.

Sera patted the giant next to her and shook her head, "The Imp scientists took him a few months ago." She hadn't expected this talk to ever happen; let alone so soon, or be quite so hard to see a grown man so close to tears. "I'm sorry, he didn't deserve what was done to us." Sera hopped off the bunk and went back to where she'd left her pack and fished out two of the ration bars, she handed one to Gat, "Ra'at wanted you to have that. The cuff, not the food." She took a bite of the sickly sweet dessert, "Does it hurt?"

"What?"

"Your head; you keep poking it."

The Devaronian scowled at the impertinant human child in front of him and swore in his own language.

Sera chuckled. The ruddy youngling had the cheek to laugh in his face! "You do remember I can understand what you're saying right?"

"A kid your age shouldn't know what those words emmean/em even if you recognise them." Gat coughed, shook his head as if to clear it and continued, "how old are you anyway?"

Sera snorted, "No manners, just like Ra'at always told me. I will say that you grow up fast as slicer for a Coruscant street crew." She went back and searched through the pockets of her gore spattered shirt until she pulled out the glass vial she'd retrieved from the medlab.

"I'm probably ten, maybe eleven. How old are you? Like 50?"

"You cheeky brat. I'm twenty three!" Gat had started to sweat; just like Greeley and Vesek before they got really sick.

Sera looked down at the yellowish liquid in the vial in the palm of her hand. "Dr Cody is pretty smart right? I mean, if she had to figure out some stuff on her own she probably could?"

"I guess; I mean she knows most of us are just faking it to stay out of Gen Pop."

"Good." Sera stepped forward and swiftly jabbed the needle tip of the vaccine bottle into his arm.

Gat roared and swore vehemently.

"Calm down you old git; it was just something to stop you getting sick."

-000-

Dr Cody was starting to fret. The engineers were starting to get worryingly sick, Vesek had started to throw up blood, and Austin had started to show signs of nausea as well.

"Waste!" She called to the droid; "Get them all into the contamination bubble now. Run tox-screens on all bloods and someone get Sartoris back here."

Vesek coughed and with an _urk_ turned his head and jetted out a fountain of bright red arterial blood, spattering the other engineer and patients in the beds beside him.

"What happened to the others in your search party?" Zahara asked Austin as she tried to help Vesek through his seizure.

Austin shrugged, "Dunno. They came back before we did."

"No they didn't. Your group are the only ones to have come back."

Waste was helping to move the weaker members of the party into the contamination bubble, and Zahara debated how she was going to break the news to the warden.

nt-size: 14px; line-hA hand came down on her shoulder, making her jump. She whirled to see Gat standing behind her, the little girl less than a step behind him; gripping the bottom hem of his prison uniform tightly.

The Devish was rubbing his arm compulsively, "Is everything okay Doc? I heard you mentioning the bubble."

"Just a precaution Gat."

Gat nodded, "Well just let me know if there's anything I can do to help."

Dr Cody peered around him to smile at the girl. "Sera, I need you to go and wait in there too please. Just until I figure out how to make them better."

The girl shook her head vehemently; she most definitely did not want to be trapped with a front row seat to the bloodbath that was about to ensue.

Zahara sighed, the child was clearly traumatised by whatever had happened aboard the Star Destroyer, and she hadn't wanted to make things worse for her, but Zahara knew she had to prioritise the well being of the other five hundred souls of the Purge over one. It didn't mean she had to like it though.

"I'll go with you if you like?" Gat's rough voice startled the girl out of her thoughts.

Sera considered for a while and then reluctantly agreed. After all, she knew he shouldn't get sick now and he was just like Ra'at had described him during their time spent in the cells. They'd had nothing better to do than swap stories as the older ones were taken away to become part of whatever the Imps had been doing.

"Gat." Dr Cody's hand on his arm stopped him as he went to collect the girl's things. She lowered her voice to a whisper, "Are you sure? I mean I don't know what's wrong with them or if it is contagious. You could be putting yourself into real danger."

The Devish grinned back down at the petite human, "You're smart Doc, you'll figure it out. Besides," the smile faltered for a moment, "someone I knew was on that ship and I feel like someone needs to look out for her. It seems she's had to do it alone all her life."

Zahara stepped back and let him pass, "You're a good person Gat Targon."


	12. Red Map

"Does it hurt?"

"What?" Gat looked down at the child sat on the floor of the quarantine bubble beside him.

"Your horn. The broken one; you keep poking it. Like it's a loose tooth or something."

"I guess not. It just feels like I'm off balance." He shrugged.

Sera looked away from her new friend as Greeley had another seizure. "I don't want to die here Gat."

Dr Cody, dressed in an isolation suit, shook her head. Greeley had died.

Sera hated the fact she was just a child, that she was trapped on a different bloody spaceship and that there was nothing she could do to stop it.

On the plus side, that horrible fluttery feeling in her stomach had gone; which meant she was where she was supposed to be.

Gat shifted uncomfortably, he wasn't used to children, let alone ones that weren't his sister's. He did remember from the brief stays on Devaron what to do when the girls had started to get upset.

"Uh. Don't cry." He wrapped and arm around the girl and winced as she elbowed him in the ribcage.

"I'm not crying!" Sera glared, but didn't move too far away. She saw that other patients outside of the bubble were starting to get sick now too. "Are you feeling okay?" She asked.

Gat paused before replying, "Actually yeah. Apart from being stuck in a bubble with a load of guards and a cheeky brat of course."

'_Good. That meant that the drug had worked and Gat was inoculated now.' _Ra'at would never have forgiven her if she'd let his favourite uncle die here.

-000-

Sartoris was not having a good time. He was back on the Destroyer and something unseen, but definitely sensed, was hunting him and his men. It was picking them off one by one and chewing on them with a wet, sickening gusto. He was alone now. Alone but for the **thing** that was hunting him. Sartoris kept moving, trying to ignore the deep seated burn in his side; an itch that was driving him crazy. Almost as irritating as the sound of banging that echoed through the black and deserted halls.

"Ah bumblefuck." Sartoris snorted as he woke up to realise he had only been dreaming, and the drumming was just someone pounding on his door. He opened the door and saw two armed guards dressed in orange hazmat suits looking at him.

"Sir, we need you to come with us to medbay." The glare of the guard's helmet prevented Jareth from identifying who exactly it was.

He glowered, "Are these orders from the Warden or from the good doctor?" The sneer he imparted to the last part made it obvious that he really did not hold Dr Cody in any kind of regard at all. "What's with the getup? I feel fine." He took a step forward and was shocked to see the two officers take a reflexive step backward.

"Still sir, we must insist you come with us." Said the guard with the blaster.

"How are Austin and that engineer, Greeley?" Sartoris asked as he pushed past them.

Having his back to them, he missed the look they exchanged behind the tinted face shields. "Uh sir, Austin died about an hour ago."

Sartoris felt sucker punched, "That's impossible! I was just talking to him." A cold uncertainty washed over him, "How long have I been asleep?"

The other one, a newbie called Saltern, spoke up, "I really couldn't say sir. I think it's best if you come with us now."

"I can find my own way to the infirmary Saltern." Sartoris strode off down the corridor.

"I know sir, we were given orders to escort you there regardless."

'_Just in case I bolt._' Sartoris thought wryly. '_Perhaps I should.'_

As the trio waited at the turbo lift station, he had another terrible thought, "What about Vesek?"

Saltern shrugged, "It's probably best if you ask Dr Cody yourself. All we've been told is everyone from the search party needs to be put into quarantine until we can identify the contagion."

They stepped inside the lift and Sartoris stabbed the button for the floor the infirmary was on, "What about the other group? The ones who came back before us."

"They never came back sir."

-000-

Despite her best intentions, Sera found herself drifting into an uneasy series of catnaps. She blamed Gat entirely. The big dummy was being completely reasonable and nice and had offered to keep an eye out if she wanted to rest.

Dangit, after months of shivering in an unheated Destroyer; sitting next to Ra'at's uncle was like leaning on a furnace. How in the world was she supposed to run away from the monsters when it was so comfortable right here? As she dreamed, Sera found herself back on the Vector. This time, **she** was the one doing the hunting. Faceless Imps fell under her claws and she revelled in the feeling of power. A heady rush after months of terror. She stalked through the endless corridors, hunting, searching, chasing. No matter the numbers of men who fell to her destructive urges; there was one in particular she was hunting. The mean-hearted Captain.

There he was, it looked like he was tearing at his own skin. Plunging his fingers into his flesh; trying to grab something or pull something out. As the Sera-thing came closer, she realised this dream was not truly her own. She could hear a knocking sound; like a fist on a cabin's door. This was his dream.

Sera woke with a hastily-stifled cry and refused to admit that it was nice to know she had a friend here. One who hopefully wouldn't die like the others. Well at least she'd be rested before she was killed and that was a relief.


	13. Big Midnight

Trig stood by the door of the cell he shared with his brother, hands wrapped loosely around the bars. Ever since this unscheduled lockdown, he'd been feeling more jittery than usual. It didn't help that the two Rodians across the walkway had gone from sniggering and glaring, to coughing and whining in pain.

Guards dressed in orange biohazard suits were swarming like ants; all too focussed on their mysterious tasks to stop and answer Trig's questions.

Kale was lying on his bunk; eyes shut and Trig wished that he could compartmentalise as well as his big brother. The teen leaned forward against the bars and rested his head against the cool metal, enjoying the brief respite from the increasingly hot and stuffy detention level.

"See anything out there?"

"Trig shook his head; reddish hair falling into his eyes. "Uh uh."

Two more guards hurried past, ignoring Trig's questions about what was going on.

Kale shrugged and started to snore, unphased by the strange goings on. Trig sighed and went back to staring out into the corridor, not heeding his brother's previous warnings that eventually he would see something he didn't like.

"Hey there."

Trig started when the whisper came from the cell beside them; he tried to peer around to see who or what had spoken, but couldn't see anything, "Hey." He replied. "Do you know what's happening?"

The voice ignored his question and carried on, "Your name's Trig Longo isn't it?"

"Yeah."

"And your brother...he's Kale, right?"

"That's right." Trig said, "What do they call you?"

The owner of the voice continued to ignore the boy's questions, "Big price on your head. Ten thousand credits."

Trig stepped back from the bars, a minnow of doubt and unease fluttered through his stomach. That unknown prisoner just kept on talking though.

"Ten thousand credits, that's big money. Thing is, no one's going to collect."

"Why not?" Trig asked, trying so sound as cool and unphased as he knew Kale would in his place.

"Because I'm the one that offered it. And I'm going to kill you both myself."

Trig's entire body went numb as he recognised that hissing, mushy pronunciation. Something that clearly only got worse since Kale had ripped out all of his piercings earlier.

"I requested a transfer just so I could be close to you." Aur Myss said, "Greased the right wheels you might say. The second they open these doors; I'm going to tear you and your brother apart with my bare hands. And that's just for starters." He chuckled.

"Why don't you just shut up." Kale said calmly from his bunk, making Trig jump. He hadn't even realised Kale was awake, or listening.

Myss giggled again, an incongruously high pitched noise. Trig wondered if it had been the delphanian laughing when ICO Wembly had yelled for quiet.

"How do you want it? Quick and dirty, I'm guessing. We can do it somewhere private. The guards will find your bodies later, but it might be a while. Not that anybody's gonna care - not any more than they cared about your old man when Sartoris-"

"Shut _up_," Kale hissed and sprang off his bunk to join his younger brother at the bars; swinging an arm out almost as if he could reach around and hit the vile Aur Myss.

"Kale, don't!"

But by the time Kale realised, it was too late.

Myss grabbed the human's arm and yanked, pulling Kale face first into the bars. It seemed the ruckus was interesting enough for one of the Rodians in the opposite cell to sit up on their bunk to watch with a glazed look in their eyes.

Myss was grunting and giggling; claws digging into Kale's arm, "Just can't wait for it?" He hissed, "You want if now? Is that it? You want me to-"

There was a sharp _thwack_ and Kale was released, stumbling back from the bars.

"Get your meat hooks back inside." ICO Wembly ordered. He was wearing one of the orange isolation suits and had his BLX droid standing a step behind him. When he turned back to the Longo brothers' cell, Trig could see himself reflected in the suit's polarised face shield.

"You still got all five?"

Kale nodded, "Yeah." He flexed his fingers, "I think so; he was just messing with me."

Trig stepped back up to the bars, "What's with the suit?"

Wembly looked uncomfortable and cut the droid's explanation off with a curt, "It's just a precaution. Nothing to worry about."

The teen frowned, "I-is it bad?"

"Nobody knows anything. Dr Cody's trying to figure it out."

The guard glanced at the Rodians who had started to whine and cough again. "Looks like your neighbours aren't daring too well. Two less you'll have to worry about I guess."

"Wembly-"

From somewhere up the corridor, something, somebody shrieked and Wembly spun around with the deceptive grace of someone his size. Whatever he saw; he clearly didn't like. Without another word to the Longo brothers, he turned and fled.

They didn't have to wait long to find out what had frightened away the guard.

Another ICO came shambling down the corridor, with a torn suit and no face mask.

He was screaming as he slammed into the bars. He kept screaming, even as he threw up a gutful of blood through the bars. It hit Trig in the face; shockingly warm and wet against his nose and cheeks. The guard finally stopped screaming; fever hot and trembling. He began to cough; deep and horribly wet sounding.

Trig stumbled backward into his brother, both staring at the guard in horror.

The guard spoke eventually; in that dry, flat, dull voice of someone talking in their sleep, "You can't stop it. There's no way to stop it." He coughed again, "You just can't."

"What?" Trig asked.

The guard just shook his head and began to walk unsteadily up the corridor where Wembly had disappeared.

Trig let out a shaky breath; suddenly miserably sure he was going to cry. His throat was tight and he was scared; but he was also thinking about his father. The fact that with the lights down and the engines off in this frightening lockdown didn't help; that he no longer knew what time it was, or how long they had been stuck only made this unsettling situation that much worse. Just a few short months ago the three of them had been sitting at home eating breakfast - how in the world had things gotten so bad, so quick?

Kale placed a hand on his little brother's shoulder, "Hey," he lifted the hem of his shirt and wiped away the worst of the blood and Trig's first few tears, "It'll be alright."

Trig sniffed and said in a small voice, "This is bad."

"We've been through worse." Kale said calmly, not betraying a hint of the unease he felt.

Trig couldn't answer past the lump in his throat; he just put his face against his brother's chest and hugged him tightly. Kale hugged him back, "Ssh. S'okay."

In the opposite cell, one of the Rodians began to cough weakly, but insistently; stopping only to draw a rasping breath before continuing to cough.

Beside them Aur Myss was giggling and imitating Trig's sobs.

"Kale?" Trig eventually managed in a watery voice.

"Yeah?"

"Do _you_ feel sick?"

His brother shook his head straight away, "Me? No, I feel fine. You?"

Trig nodded and stepped away, "Yeah. But if you start to feel sick, you have to tell me right away, alright?"

Kale smiled, "Sure."

"I mean it!"

"I will; but it ain't going to happen."

Trig sniffed and looked solemnly up at Kale, "You don't know that."

"Trust me, okay?"

Trig sat down on his bunk; agreeing with his brother, but knowing he was right. He stared out at the coughing Rodians, feeling as though something even worse was coming.

In the cell next to them Aur Myss settled down and sighed, "I'm gonna get you kid. When the time comes; I'll be waiting."


	14. Molecules

Zahara was adjusting the air intake valve on her isolation suit when she heard Waste clatter up behind her. "Not now Waste."

"It's important."

She dismissed the droid without thinking about what she was doing. This afternoon had been a blurry nightmare of blood and confusion. Her normally sedate infirmary was overflowing with prisoners and guards that had been struck down by this unknown contagion. Every bed was filled and there were even patients lying on the floor. The infirmary rang with their cries for aid and the soft beeping of the life support machines was beginning to drive her crazy.

Whatever it was that the boarding party had brought back with them from the Destroyer had spread so quickly through the Purge that both she and Waste had lost count of the new admissions.

Captain Sartoris had arrived under guard by his own men a short while ago and Waste had ushered him straight into the quarantine bubble.

Knowing that Sartoris was lurking in there, waiting for her, was an extra dose of stress that she really didn't need right now. It didn't help that the Warden had also been calling her constantly for updates on the situation.

The bloody bureaucrat just couldn't understand why she couldn't at least diagnose what it was, what was wrong; let alone come up with a cure for whatever was decimating the crew and prisoners of the Purge.

Up until the latest interruption by Waste, she'd had her hands full with simply triaging the latest admissions, cataloguing the various symptoms that seemed to range the full spectrum from fevers, to seizures, hallucinations, haemorrhaging, coma, and death.

Now the 2-1B unit was patiently standing beside her, waiting for Dr Cody to give him her full attention. "What is it now Waste?" She sighed, "Whatever it is it's going to have to wait."

"The Warden wants another update. He's waiting to talk to you." The droid somehow managed to sound regretful about the last part.

"How bad is it?"

The droid paused, "Twelve fatalities so far."

Zahara felt the beginnings of a headache and hoped it was just stress, and not the first stages of this mystery plague. If she got sick; there would be no one to help the others. "Including the entire boarding party?"

"With the exceptions of Captain Sartoris, ICO Vesek, and Miss Sera." Waste said.

"And they're all still in the bubble?"

"That is correct. Otherwise, the pathogen has already spread through the entirety of the Purge. I'm following several reports of outbreaks in General Population - inmates, guards, support staff. Rate of infection is nearly one hundred percent. If nothing changes, our current medical supplies should last for one further week." The medical droid's vocabulator synthesised a lower, more confiding tone, "I have been unable to isolate the molecular makeup of this particular strain of virus. Dr Cody?"

"Yes."

"As you know, my programming on infectious diseases is quite wide in scope, but this current contagion is like nothing I have ever seen." The droid's voice lowered further into a synthesised version of a whisper. "It seems as though the organisms are using quorum sensing to communicate within the host individual."

Dr Cody pursed her full lips thoughtfully, "Meaning what exactly?"

"Individual disease cells don't activate their full virulence until they have reproduced in such numbers that the host's immune system is unable to combat the contagion."

"In other words; when it's too late for us to do anything."

Waste made an affirmative noise, "That's correct Dr Cody. At this point I'm not even sure that the isolation suits are an effective barrier."

Dr Cody looked over at the bubble and saw Gat talking seriously to the waif from the Destroyer. She didn't know what it was - that rare and elusive element of goodness and decency that made Gat unique amongst her patients. No matter what it was; she was glad that he was in there with her. It was odd that many of those inside the bubble who had survived weren't showing any signs of infection.

-000-

Sera tried to make herself as small as possible, she didn't like the way Sartoris' eyes had flicked over the pair of them like they were less than dirt. He had a crazy look to him that she recognised from her time as a lab rat on the Vector. Guys who had that look were dangerous.

She shivered and pulled the thick mat of curly brown hair forward over her shoulder. Sera began to finger comb out the tangles and mutter to herself in Devish.

Gat looked down, surprised at the familiar phrases of a lullaby he had sung to his nieces and nephews before he'd decided to leave to seek his fortune offworld.

When he noticed Sartoris look over for the third time, he stood and sat on Sera's other side, shielding her from that damn monster's gaze.

Sera looked up in surprise as he ruffled the curls she had just untangled. "Why?"

The Devaronian smiled, "Because it looks like I owe you a few debts now already kiddo." He lowered his voice to a whisper, "Besides, the Doc told me to look after ya."

Sera narrowed her eyes and glared up at Gat, suspicious of any adult now. He didn't **seem** like one of the bad ones; but he had to have done something bad to have wound up on a prison transport on its way to the ass end of nowhere.

-000-

At Waste's words, Zahara looked down self-consciously at her own orange isolation suit. She had donned it as soon as she'd made the decision to implement quarantine procedures, but she didn't like it; nor the message it sent to the other inmates that had been exposed already.

The droid was right though, there were already guards coming in sick who had been in the isolation suits since the initial order. She wasn't feeling sick yet though.

'_For now.'_ A grim voice murmured in her head.

From across the infirmary an alarm went off; a steady, high pitched whine that marked one of the patients going into full arrest. Zahara took a step toward the source; but then a second, and a third alarm went off. Part of her thought, hoped, it was an equipment malfunction but she could see from where she was that it wasn't.

Her patients were dying. Dying faster and dying all around her and there was nothing that she could do. The only action she could do that would make a difference would be to sign the requisite forms once the bodies had been taken away.

"I'll take care of this." Waste said, "You need to talk to the Warden."

Dr Cody shook her head and threw off the feeling of helplessness, before striding over to the first patient to trip the alarm. By the time the brunette reached the inmate, it was too late. He had collapsed, the monitors feeding back a constant shrill whine. That helpless noise seemed to be coming from everywhere now.

The patient to the right of Zahara started to have a seizure, and his alarm went off too.

For the hundredth time that day; Dr Cody wondered what the hell had happened up on that ship and what the boarding party had brought back either them. She also knew that there was only one person she could ask.

-000-

When the first alarm went off, Sera began to tremble. By the time the third alarm sounded; she was shaking and whimpering loudly enough for Gat to notice.

"Frack." The Devaronian scooped up the child and pulled her onto his lap. She was crying now and he wrapped his arms around her, covering her ears with his hands, and murmuring nonsense in Basic and Devish.

Sera vaguely registered someone picking her up, she didn't fight it. It was far too late for that now.

They were all dead.

The pretty doctor hadn't found the cure.

She was just a child.

How could she have known the doctor wouldn't be able to do what the Imps had done?

Even as the other alarms went off, muffled as they were through her impromptu earmuffs, Sera was trying to plan her next steps. She hadn't seen the results of the plague first hand before, and she wasn't sure which was more terrifying; this chaos, or the aftermath.

Whichever the 'winner' of that particular competition proves to be, she was not going to die. She was not going to let this happen again.


	15. Bubble

Vesek's life support alarm was going off as Dr Cody entered the bubble. She glanced at Gat; who was glaring over at the Captain and the ICO.

He was holding the girl protectively and Zahara blinked at the incongruous image.

She saw Sartoris standing over Vesek's bed, the younger man staring up at his commanding officer. His face had gone so pale, so white, that Dr Cody could see the fine blue veins beneath his skin.

She strode forward, letting the flap to the bubble seal shut behind her with a muted _thwap_. "What happened?"

"You're the doctor, you tell me!" Sartoris snapped.

"He was stable just a few minutes ago." She snapped back, checking his monitors. Vesek's pulse was gone and his oxygen levels were dropping fast. "Did you do something to him?"

Sartoris glared at her, "Me?"

"Hand me that blister pack. No - the other one." She ripped it open and pulled out a breathing tube and smeared it with lubricant, "Tilt his head back."

Sartoris moved stiffly to do the doctor's bidding. He watched as she eased the tube down Vesek's throat. It hit an obstruction somewhere and he gagged; making a wet sound deep in his chest that she had become all too familiar with over the last few hours.

"Watch yourself." She warned as dense red fluid began to flow up the breathing tube, pouring out of Vesek's mouth. She reached to apply suction; but couldn't see where to direct it. As she hesitated; she could feel Sartoris hovering just over her shoulder, watching her every move.

Dr Cody had to make a deliberate effort to ignore him literally breathing down her neck. She was glad that she was still wearing her isolation suit, sure that the feel of his musty breath on her skin would actually make her vomit.

Working carefully, and entirely by touch, she repositioned the tube and breathed a sigh of relief as she heard the rattling sounds of Vesek hungrily slurping up precious oxygen. After securing the tube so it wouldn't slip again, she started to clean Vesek up; breathing slowly, trying to steady her increasingly-frazzled nerves.

"Is he going to make it?" Sartoris demanded once the steady beeping of Vesek's heartbeat returned.

Zahara shook her head, "Not for much longer. Not like this." She gestured at the machines that were staving off the young guard's final moments. She turned to face the Captain fully, "I need to talk to you."

"I was just leaving."

"Excuse me?" The young woman looked up at him incredulously.

"I came to talk to Vesek," Sartoris growled, "Not much chance of that now you've stuffed that down his neck."

"You can't leave." She protested.

"And who's going to stop me? You?"

Dr Cody clung desperately to the last shreds of her patience, "You're in quarantine as you're one of the primary carriers of this infection. You need to stay here."

Sartoris eyed her coldly. The almost reptilian look that appeared ingrained into the very bones of his face and was coldly indifferent. She'd never seen anything quite so unsettling in her life.

"Let me make this perfectly clear - you have no authority over me. There's nothing you can do for me, my men, or any of these inmates. You're useless Dr. Cody and you know it." Sartoris sneered at the doctor's ashen face, "If you were one if my guards, you'd be gone by now...if you were lucky. If not, you'd be dead."

"Look-"

"Save it for your precious inmates." He spat, before walking to the bubble's exit, "I've heard enough."

"Jareth wait."

Sartoris paused at the mention of his first name, he turned back to the doctor and a hideous grin spread across his face as he looked at the doctor, "You're scared stiff aren't you."

"That's got nothing to do with any of this!" Zahara protested.

"You **should** be scared. They're going to remember you for this."

"What?"

"You may think that you're done with the Empire; but I assure you that the Empire is _not_ done with you." He glanced outside of the sealed bubble, watching the 2-1B scurrying from bed to bed as the alarms sounded one after the other; each one signalling respiratory or cardiac arrest.

'Sartoris strode back to the doctor, "Every one of those exposed guards and inmates on this barge are going to die in the next few hours, while you stand there in your isolation suit. I hope you enjoy answering questions, because there will be plenty of those waiting for you." He reached out and gently placed his forefinger on her sternum, "You are going to spend the rest of your life living this down."

"What did you and your men see up there on that Star Destroyer?"

"See? Not a thing. Not a damn thing."

Dr Cody sighed and looked at the data scrolling across the screens along the bubble's inner membrane. "Your blood work is coming back clean. For some reason the infection doesn't seem to be affecting you at all."

Captain Sartoris shoved past her, "If you think you can stop me, you're welcome to try. Otherwise, I'll be in the Warden's office. I'm sure that he'll be very interested in how you and your staff are holding up at this difficult time."

Before she could say or do anything else, he'd already walked out of the bubble and left the medbay.

Something about his attitude and the little show just now bothered Zahara; what was his game? There was no way Sartoris was going to Kloth just to report on her inefficiency here. After all, how much more trouble could she get in anyway? It's not like she created the contagion.

Zahara left the bubble and started to follow the unstable Captain before pausing, feeling momentarily light-headed. She quickly assessed herself for symptoms of the illness she'd seen her patients suffer. She wasn't having any issues with her breathing, didn't seem to have a temperature, and she definitely didn't have any desire or need to start coughing. Was she getting sick, or was this sudden dizziness just a side effect of all of the accumulated stress of the situation?

"Waste?"

The droid didn't look up from the patient it was tending to, "Yes Dr Cody."

"I need you to run some blood and cultures."

"On which patient Dr Cody?"

Zahara took a deep breath, "Me."

"You?" The 2-1B looked at her and Zahara swore that if he could frown, then he definitely would be, "But that would require me to breach the isolation barrier of your suit."

"The suits aren't working anyway. You said so yourself."

"I was just speculating-"

"Enough." She interrupted, peeling off her mask and yanking off the suit's gloves before rolling up one sleeve to expose her bare arm.

The nearby inmates who were still conscious watched the battle of wills between woman and machine dully.

Waste was clearly distressed by her actions, upset audible in his synthesised voice. "Dr Cody please reconsider. My theories regarding the efficacy of the isolation suits are hardly conclusive; besides, my prime directive is to promote wellness and to protect life wherever possible."

"Just do it." Zahara ordered, trying to stare down the droid.

-000-

Sera took a shaky breath and tried to wiggle free from Gat's grip, she was panicking now. She knew she was panicking and knowing that she knew really didn't help.

That fluttering feeling of wrongness was back, stronger than ever. She needed to get away; get them both away before it was too late.

There were too many people in the infirmary and she didn't know where all the hidey holes were on this kind of ship. She didn't even know what type of ship she was on.

"C'mon Gat; we gotta go. We gotta go now!" Sera pulled free and got to her feet, wincing at the sudden coldness. She reached out and grabbed on of his arms and tugged.

"Look, kid; I think we should stay-"

Sera rolled her eyes, "Gat come on! You heard what the doctor said; the infection hasn't affected us."

She stopped when she saw Vesek and the puddle of blood beneath his bed. The still, covered forms of the others from the boarding party were neatly stacked in rows where Waste had moved them.

Sera clutched her head and dropped to her knees.


	16. VHB

Sartoris walked up the corridor toward the Warden's office with a pair of E-11 blaster rifles; stocks collapsed so he could carry one in each hand.

He'd taken them from two of the stormtroopers in the hallway - one of them; the one right outside the medbay had even attempted to shoot him with it. The first guard had been raving; hardly aware of where he was. He'd been yelling all sorts of strange things; like his lungs were filling up. That he was drowning from the inside out, but they wouldn't let him into the medbay.

After Sartoris had wrenched the blaster away from the doomed guard; he'd stunned him and moved on. The next guard he came across he just shot straight away and took his gun too.

As he carried on heading toward the admin level and the Warden's office; Sartoris noticed that he was coming across more and more bodies. Some were still running around in a blind panic; storm troopers, ICOs in the ineffective isolation gear, no one was spared.

The ones that were lying on the floors he simply stepped around or on.

Nothing was going to stand in his way now.

-000-

Sera rocked back and forth on the floor of the bubble, hands clamped to either side of her head. The voices were roaring. "Noooo."

Hot tears forced themselves down her cheeks without her even noticing.

Gat stumbled out of the bubble, "Doc! Help!"

Zahara looked up from the guard she was treating at the panicked shout from her least troublesome patient. "What's wrong Gat?"

He pointed back at the bubble, "Something's up with the kid; she's not making any sense. She was trying to get us to leave and then started going on about monsters and bad flowers and all sorts of weird stuff."

The guard she had been treating flatlined for a second time and she knew there was no saving any of them. Not any more. "Is she physically hurt Gat?"

The Devish shook his head, "I don't think so. She's just hysterical I think."

Dr Cody sighed. "Stay with her in the bubble for the moment please Gat. I need to try and treat the others first."

Gat didn't seem convinced; but he did jog back into the comparative calm of the isolation bubble.

-000-

The air was beginning to smell up here. Sartoris sniffed in disgust; the reek of bile, fear, and blood was oppressive. If it was this bad up on the administration level; how much worse would it be down in Gen. Pop?

He'd stopped counting the number of bodies a while ago; but couldn't help but wonder if Warden Kloth had just sealed off the detention levels entirely to just wait for the inmates to just die off entirely.

He finally reached the Warden's office and stabbed the call button, waiting for an acknowledgement. The Warden's voice didn't respond. Sartoris hit the intercom switch again; "Sir, it's Captain Sartoris. Open up."

Despite the complete lack of response, Jareth knew the Warden wouldn't be anywhere else. In all the years he'd worked with Kloth, Sartoris knew that the Warden's standard reaction to any situation was to retreat to his office; like a soft-skinned creature seeking the safety of its shell.

The Warden had something he needed - the access codes to the escape pods.

Maintaining said escape pods had been the responsibility of one ICO Vesek, and Sartoris knew that Vesek had the launch codes. He'd sat beside the hallucinating young officer in the damned medbay, trying to ignore the chaos outside and that unnerving feeling of that Force-damned girl staring at him and muttering in some heathen tongue.

Sartoris had asked him over and over for the launch codes without any luck. Eventually he'd lost patience with Vesek; and who could blame him? He was in the middle of a very stressful situation.

He'd only tried to give the sick man some encouragement to be more forthcoming; he hadn't meant to pinch his nose shut for quite so long, but what other choice did he have?

If Vesek had just co-operated, had just snapped out of the hallucinations long enough to give him those damn codes; none of this unpleasantness would have to have happened.

All he'd needed was a little information; the same way he'd wanted information from that old inmate Von Longo. The old man hadn't been very forthcoming either.

Well this was a prison barge and accidents happened all the time right?

_'But Vesek wasn't an inmate was he?' _A little voice whispered in Sartoris' head, a horrid little judgemental voice that sounded too much like the good doctor for his liking. _'Vesek was one of your own men and you-'_

"He was on his way out anyway." Sartoris muttered, interrupting the voice in his head, and turning his attention back to the task at hand. Kloth was in there and he needed to talk to him more urgently than ever. Somehow he was going to convince Kloth that they both needed to get off this doomed barge **now**.

After all there was plenty of room in escape pods for two - or just himself if he couldn't make Kloth see sense.

"Warden?" Sartoris yelled. There was still a complete lack of sound or action from the other side of the door. He eyed the door thoughtfully but reluctantly admitted that firing on the door was more likely to riddle him full of holes from ricocheting blaster bolts than actually opening the armoured door.

'_Damnit. I need those access codes sooner rather than later.'_ Sartoris frowned, devious mind already trying to think up an alternative plan.

Then the door slid open by itself...

-000-

Sera felt like tearing her hair out in frustration.

Grown ups never listened to what kids had to say.

They never wanted to admit the truth right in front of them.

The hulking captain of the guard, with his hateful eyes and shaggy black hair, was a devil.

She'd sensed the darkness inside him from the beginning and only Greeley's kindness had tempted her out of the vents at all.

Sera could almost see the unhappy ghosts of those the captain had killed or tormented surrounding him.

No one else seemed to have noticed his hands were always covered in blood.

She shivered, not entirely trusting her own impressions any more - had that been actual or metaphorical blood this time?

'_It doesn't matter,' _she told herself sternly, '_what matters is he tried to kill that guard and no one even noticed.'_ The captain had stood beside his subordinate's bed for a long time. She hadn't heard what he as saying; but it looked like he was mouthing the same thing over and over. He'd bent over the boy then and did something. Then the alarms had gone off.

It really didn't help that she kept seeing flashes of nightmare inducing images. Ra'at's uncle had died on his cot; pale skin, slack jaw and glassy eyes. Another good soul snuffed out too soon.

Gat hadn't stayed dead though had he.

He'd become one of _them_.

Smile turned to grimace and teeth turned to weapons.

-000-

Sartoris hesitated at the threshold of the Warden's office. Doubting his course of action now for some reason.

He shook his head and stepped into the darkened room.

The instant he stepped beyond the door he was assaulted by a wave of the same stench that had laced the corridors. This was worse; concentrated into the small space for so long it almost had a tangible feel.

Sartoris gagged reflexively and took a few more careful steps into the office. Something stirred on the far side of Kloth's console and gargled a greeting.

The captain of the guard took another handful of cautious steps around the side of the console.

Kloth was lying on the floor of his office, curled in a fetal position, in a growing puddle of a greyish red liquid.

When Kloth saw Sartoris, he struggled to lift himself to his elbows. Stringy webs of sticky fluid dripped from his mouth and nose.

The last vestiges of cruelty and toughness had been stripped from his face, leaving only the spineless, trembling thing he'd always known lurked inside of the Warden.

Kloth coughed, "I've been watching the monitors. This infection from the Star Destroyer-" he gasped, "-it's spreading too quickly to stop. Would you agree?"

Sartoris nodded.

"Then we're left with only one course of action." The Warden drew in another laboured, wet and rattling breath, "We must abandon ship."

"I couldn't agree more."

"You'll help me to the escape pod; that's SOP." He coughed and continued his wheezing ramble, "I'll make my report from there. Imperial ... Corrections won't question ... my decision. They can access all of the data from the infirmary afterward."

Sartoris nodded along, quite impressed that even though Kloth was quite clearly dying, the bureaucratic weasel was still concerned with covering his own ass. "You have the access codes for launch?"

Kloth coughed, nodded, then coughed harder. The force of them making the veins in his head throb visibly.

"I think," Sartoris said in a reasonable tone, "you should tell me now." Kloth narrowed, then widened his eyes when he saw both E-11 rifles swing down to his face. They were so close, the warden could still smell the wafts of ozone and see they were set to kill.

"You're an animal. I should have relieved you of duty when I had the chance."

Sartoris held the weapons rock steady, "It's not too late; you could make it your last order."

"Put them down. You'll need both hands to help me to the pod."

A hint of a smile twitched at the corners of the captain's mouth. "I'll manage. After you give me the codes."

"I don't really have much choice, do I?"

Sartoris gave him a bland look, as though they were discussing nothing more interesting than the weather, "You could try lying to me. But I wouldn't recommend it - after all I work with liars and con men every day."

Kloth handed him a datacard with a trembling hand, "I couldn't alter them if I wanted to, they're already imprinted on here." He said peevishly. The warden kept his gaze steady as he began to talk to Sartoris about his psych evaluation; the Veq-Hedley Battery. It was supposed to show any underlying psychopathic tendencies; just in case those traits would come in useful to the Empire. "Would you like to know how you scored on your VHB captain?"

I think we both know the answer to that." He pulled both triggers and was quite impressed with the effect in such a confined area - the top half of Kloth's head was vaporised and his body skidded backward in the puddle of gore.

Sartoris pocketed the datapad.

Time to go.


	17. In the cage

Trig shivered as he peered through the bars of their cell. The shouts and screaming had stopped a while ago; leaving only a harrowing silence that went on an on without end.

The teenager swallowed and muttered, "They're all dead. Aren't they?"

Kale hesitated and replied in an uncertain voice, "I don't know."

"If anyone's left alive, they've already gone haven't they. They've left us. We're going to die down here aren't we?"

"You need to stop talking like that right now." Kale said sternly.

Trig didn't respond. He'd watched the Rodians in the cell opposite die. It had been awful; they'd literally coughed themselves to death; hacking up bits of organs he couldn't (and didn't) want to identify. Eventually they'd just...stopped.

Now it was beginning to stink down here. Logically he knew that the process of decay shouldn't happen so fast; that he was surely imagining it. Nevertheless the smell was still there. Perhaps it was whatever this disease was affecting alien biology differently; perhaps it was because this thing- this contagion spread so far and so fast.

Trig cursed his imagination as it populated the rows of cells with hundreds of dead inmates. Corpses falling everywhere, arms sticking through the bars in a last plea for aid that would never come.

He wondered why he and Kale weren't dead, neither even felt sick. He thought it ironic that they had survived through some random genetic immunity, only to die of starvation or dehydration like a couple of forgotten pets in a cage. Trig remembered something his father had always said: _The universe has a sense of humour, just not a nice one._

"What happens next?" he asked.

Kale pressed himself closer to the bars, cupped his hands around his mouth and yelled, "Hey! Is anybody out there?" His voice was startlingly loud in the silence, making Trig jump despite himself. "Hello! We're alive in here! HEY!"

Kale took a deep breath, but stopped as the cell doors all along the corridor clanked and began to rattle open at once. The elder Longo turned and glanced back at his brother, "I guess someone heard us."

"Yeah...but who?"

"Does it matter?" Kale said. "Right now we have-" he stopped.

"What is it?"

Kale held up a hand for quiet and cocked his head, listening.

Trig was never sure if he heard anything from the cell beside them or not - his always active imagination was working overtime, trying to make sense out of the dark, silent void of the detention level.

Kale stuck his head out of the cells and glanced up and down the corridor. Trig had the insane urge to laugh as his brother looked like he was checking for traffic before crossing the street in front of their old house.

The elder Longo stepped out of their cell, Trig a half step behind him. Too late Trig remembered "Kale wait!"

A howling and terrifying figure barrelled out of cell and leapt on Kale with a scream of rage. Kale staggered back into the wall, trying to keep Myss's flailing claws away from his eyes.

The delphanian pinned Kale to the floor and Trig could see how much the psychopath was struggling to breathe.

'_He's sick._' Trig realised, '_Now's probably your only chance Trig_.' Before he could think better of it; he threw himself onto Myss and wrapped his hands around the alien's thick neck and squeezed as hard as he could; hoping to overpower the dying Myss.

Unfortunately, the attack only seemed to give Myss a sudden surge of strength and he leapt from Kale and grabbed Trig's head and squeezed. Hard.

Trig felt blackness closing in as the scaly hands tried to crush his skull like a grape. He desperately wanted to scream, but he couldn't.

Suddenly, the pressure was gone.

Trig blinked away the black spots to see Aur Myss still staring down at him. But the crazed look of rage had faded into surprise.

Through his open mouth, Trig could see the silver glint of something shining. Myss toppled forward, falling past Trig to land face down on the floor of the cell.

It was only then that Trig realised the silver thing he'd seen was a knife. The black handle of which was sticking out of the back of Myss's skull.

"He came at me with it." Kale's voice shook a little as he helped his little brother to his feet. "Come on, let's go."

The pair walked quickly down the corridor, trying not to look at the endless rows of cells filled with dead bodies.

Kale was uncharacteristically silent as they went. Trig desperately wanted to say something. To thank him or something. Trig sighed, he had no idea where to start, so he kept his mouth shut.

At the end of the corridor, Trig spotted a slumped figure in the control booth. It was wearing an orange jumpsuit.

The brothers exchanged a look, "Wembly."

The guard was hunched over the door release controls. Kale reached into the booth and touched the orange-suited shoulder, "Hey Wembly; thanks for..."

Wembly's corpse tumbled out into the corridor and the two brothers jumped back.

"He. He let us out." Trig said, trying to not look at Wembly's ravaged face. "It was probably the last thing he did..."

"It was."

They spun around to see Wembly's BLX unit standing there in the corner of the booth. Its arms hung limply at its side, looking somehow lost without its master beside it.

Soft-hearted Trig couldn't just leave it there, "Come on, you can come with us."

The droid seemed to consider it for moment before declining the offer to stay with his master until rescue arrives.

Kale tugged on his brother's sleeve, "Come on, leave it."

"Where are we going?" Trig asked, clearing his throat, still not entirely sure breaking the silence of this floating crypt was a great idea.

"There's got to be an escape pod somewhere up there. Maybe up on the administration level." Kale said.

"You don't think somebody would have already taken it?"

Kale turned back to his brother, put his hands on his shoulders and crouched a little to look straight at Trig, "We need a plan. Unless you have any better ideas, this is our best bet."

Trig forced himself to nod and agree so they could continue putting more distance between themselves and the body of the one friendly guard on the whole damn ship.

-000-

It took them a horribly long time to find the turbolifts up from Main Detention.

Kale stopped long enough to liberate some blasters from the dead guards. Trig could tell that he wasn't entirely comfortable by the stiff and uneasy way he carried them.

Trig was beginning to feel increasingly frightened. They'd seen hundreds of cells filled with dead inmates. Some were huddled in corners and bunks, victims of whatever this disease was. Others had committed suicide. There were worse things too.

Trig saw one of the guards tied to a cell's bars, the dead inmate's shiv still sticking into his neck. He shuddered and fought the urge to cling to the back of Kale's shirt like the little kid he was increasingly feeling like.

In another cell had been a strange alien with two bodies, the smaller body was clearly dead, but the larger one was still clinging to life and to its other half, rocking it like a baby. Two Imperial guards were slumped over a dejarik holochess table, its little figures wandering around aimlessly, waiting for orders that would never come.

Trig paused as they saw a maintenance droid merrily carrying on a conversation with a dead trooper.

They finally reached the turbolift and Trig waited nervously in the oppressive silence. When the lift doors opened Trig took an involuntary step backward. Two guards were lying on opposite sides of the lift, peppered with blaster bolt scorch marks. It seemed that in the last moments of their lives they had tried to shoot the sickness out.

Kale dragged them out by their biohazard suits and Trig was relieved he didn't ask for his help.

What if they grabbed him with their cold dead hands?

What if they tried to finish what Myss had started?

Trig flinched as he heard a clinking from the endless dark behind them. Was Myss still there? He could have been immune like they were, but... He shook off those crazy thoughts and joined his brother in the lift.

-000-

Gat was feeling way out of his depth. He knew he could handle kids who had scraped knees or nightmares; but this, whatever emthis/em was, was something else entirely. At least she'd stopped ranting. Surely that was an improvement?

Gat snuck a look at the Doc and Waste - they were still fluttering from bed to bed, trying to keep the inmates and guards alive. It looked like a youngling's fears were _way_ down their list of priorities.

He drummed his fingers nervously on his knees for a moment, well they were stuck in here for the foreseeable future; so he may as well try and get some answers. It might help take his mind off the hideous situation outside; but naturally he was far more concerned about the kid.

He snorted; he'd never been very good at lying; even to himself. "So how did you and my nephew end up on a Star Destroyer bound for wild space?" '_Nice and subtle. Well done you idiot.'_

Sera stopped pacing and looked at him incredulously. She shook her head and threw up her hands, "You want to talk about that? Right now...when we're literally a few feet from potential death and destruction?"

The blank look on Gat's face failed to reassure her; but Sera knew she owed him an explanation. She forced herself to calm down a fraction and leaned against one of the vacant beds that wasn't too badly blood-spattered. "I suppose that I should probably start at the start...the gang that me and Ra'at belonged to got into trouble with one of the Hutts back on Nar Shaadaa and to be blunt; the boss sold us to cover a gambling debt."

Her gaze flicked briefly over to Gat but skittered away when he made eye contact. "A bunch of us kids ended up on a Force-forsaken planet called Marfa. Some of the kids disappeared pretty quick and well...one day it was my turn." Her mouth twisted into a scowl, "It was pretty obvious what they were after with the other girls, but Ra'at wouldn't let them take me."

She sighed and pulled at her tangled hair, "That kriffing idiot should have kept his mouth shut and stayed put."

Gat wanted to interrupt, to ask her one of the million questions racing through his mind. Something told him that this was a one-shot deal though, so he kept his mouth shut.

"I've never been able to stick to the rules." She smiled sadly, rubbing her hand over a thin scar on her forearm. "The two of us escaped that night and managed to find an old ruin to hide in." Sera furrowed her brow as she tried to remember, "It used to be one of those fancy houses for trees and plants. Can't remember what it's called..."

"An arbortorium?"

Sera gave a one-shouldered shrug. "Anyway we holed up in there for a while until a buncha Imps found us. They were looking for something on Vader's order. I don't know what or why they took us along though; but they did. A little while later and here we are."

_'Liar.'_

The voice in her head taunted her. She never knew if it was still the same thing as what she'd heard back on Marfa or just a symptom of being alone in space for so long.

_'Shut up!'_ She shook her head and sank to the floor, feeling the need to flee getting stronger.

Gat frowned thoughtfully, sure that Sera wasn't telling him the whole truth. There wasn't a lot he could do about it though. At least not right right now.

-000-

The uppermost detention level hadn't faired much better than their own; but they both shivered when they heard the faint mewling crying.

It sounded plaintive and horribly child-like, with a lost despondency that Trig found reminded him uncomfortably of the way he was feeling.

He stopped and looked in the direction of the noise, "You hear that?"

Kale shook his head, "It's none of our business."

"But what if they need our help?" Trig looked at his brother with a pleading expression. Kale sighed in exasperation, but followed his brother, neither he not their father had ever been able to resist Trig's kicked puppy face.

They walked past more cells and Trig was again reminded of forgotten animals left to rot. Kale held his blasters half raised at his sides, ready to fire at a moment's notice.

The teenagers crept toward the source of the cries until Trig stopped and stared into the cell at the end of the row.

A young wookiee, barely older than a toddler was crouched inside. He was much smaller than Trig and was hunched over the bodies of what Trig thought must have been his family; two adults and an older sibling. The infant was holding their arms and keening, trying to get them to wake up.

Kale pointed and murmured, "Look at this."

Trig looked at what his brother had spotted; the sickness had affected the wookiees differently to what they had seen so far. Their tongues had swollen and their throats had burst open, _'Or been clawed apart.'_ Trig's Force-damned imagination supplied complete with a disturbingly vivid replay of what could have happened.

When the little wookiee noticed Trig and Kale, it whimpered and its blue eyes shone with fear.

"Hey there, it's okay." Trig said softly, "We're not going to hurt you." He glanced up at Kale, "He must be immune, like us."

"So what are we going to do about it?" Kale huffed and wiped the sweat off his forehead with one sleeve.

"Wait here." Trig scampered back along the corridor to the abandoned guard station, the door was open from whoever had been on duty leaving to die in private somewhere. Trig reached in and pulled the door release lever. He heard the doors rattle open and he ran back to where his brother was still watching the young wookiee. "Come on out, you're free now." Trig smiled and held out a hand. The wookiee had stopped crying now, but just stared back at them. Trig was starting to realise that the silence was worse than any of the noises of the prison. The silence was **always** worse.

"You can't stay here on your own. Come with us."

"Careful," Kale said, "he'll take your hand off if-"

"It's okay," Trig said, not moving, "We won't hurt you."

Kale sighed, his brother could never resist a waif or stray. "Hey, man, look-"

"He's all alone."

"And he clearly wants to stay that way, all right?"

For a moment the wookiee looked at Trig curiously, almost as though it was considering the offer. Eventually though, the baby picked up the slack arms of its dead parents and wrapped them around itself. It wouldn't look at them again, not even when Kale eventually shepherded Trig away.

They were at the far end of the walkway when they heard it begin to scream.

Trig froze, the hairs on the back of his neck tingling and prickling. He shuddered as an icy feeling of terror slid over him. His breath caught painfully in his lungs, lodged in a throat constricted with a primal fear.

The wookiee's screams kept going. Agonised, strangled screams mixed with a horrifying slobbery sound of something chewing. The screams finally stopped, but the wet, grunting noises kept going.

Trig's mind flashed back to the crazed muttering and giggling of Aur Myss in the cells next to them. '_Impossible. Myss is dead. You saw it yourself._

"What is it?"

"None of our business." Kale said as he grabbed Trig's hand and pulled him along, back toward the turbolift.

Not running, but certainly walking very, very quickly.


	18. Tisa

The last of Zahara's patients died that night.

At Rhinnal, they taught her that death was something you got used to. Dr Cody had met plenty of physicians who had claimed to have adjusted to it; but they always seemed eerie and cold to her. Somehow more detached and remote than the droids who assisted them, she had always tried to avoid them and their dead clinical eyes.

Waste brought her the news of the last deaths with a neutral tone she'd never heard from the droid before. Perhaps it as what passed as sympathy in the droid world.

In an almost apologetic way, the 2-1B continued, "I have finished the analysis of your blood and the donations from Miss Sera and Mr Targon as well."

"And?"

"You are all clearly immune to this contagion." He paused, "Although the titres from Mr Targon indicated that his immunity has been artificially induced."

Dr Cody arched an eyebrow, "So..."

"Using the samples, I believe I have isolated and analysed the immunity gene within your chemical makeup. I have also had some success in synthesising it."

She stared at him, "You found a cure?"

The droid paused again, "Not exactly; it's more of an anti-virus. Of course, that is presuming that this contagion is of a viral nature; it can be administered intravenously." The droid held out a syringe of clear fluid. "If there are any other survivors aboard the barge, they should receive a dose as soon as possible."

Zahara looked at the delayed salvation in the droid's grip. She knew she should feel some sort of sense of relief, but she found herself fixating on one thing - _if there is anyone else left alive_ \- and she felt a crushing sense of personal failure. She had one job. To ensure the health and wellbeing of everyone on the Purge until they reached their final destination.

The events of the last few hours had been an unthinkable disaster; a collapse of order of such magnitude that she couldn't help but look at it through a filter of her own culpability.

Sartoris may have been trying to taunt her before during their confrontation in the quarantine bubble; but he was right about one thing, she'd never live this down. '_This is no time to be feeling sorry for yourself.' _A voice in her head scolded her, '_You need to find out if there's anyone left on this damn ship to save and jolly well save them!'_ Strangely, Zahara felt better after her mental kick in the pants, and the bubble of guilt disappeared.

Bubble...

Zahara suddenly remembered the two other survivors in the quarantine bubble. A few quick strides took her to the dome's entrance. She pulled it open and stuck her head in, "Well you may as well come out now, there's not much point in staying in there now is there?"

The girl shot to her feet and barrelled past the doctor; making a beeline for her pack.

Gat followed more sedately, stopping beside the olive-skinned human, "Hey Doc; what's going on?"

Dr Cody shrugged, "At this point Gat, your guess is as good as mine. This is nothing like we've ever seen before." She stepped aside to let him pass before something Waste had said sprang back to the forefront of her mind, _'Gat's blood had artificial immunity. That meant he __**had**__ to have been vaccinated.'_

She grasped his arm and pushed up his sleeve; there, in the crook of his arm was a recent puncture mark.

"Uh Doc?" He asked as she gently examined the wound, "There's an easier way to get my clothes off. You just need to ask."

Zahara rolled her eyes, it had been too easy a shot for any man to resist it would appear. At least she could draw a conclusion that the anti-virus Waste had cooked up should be at least as effective as whatever Gat had been injected with.

Zahara looked over to where the child was watching them with a tense stillness.

Dr Cody let go of Gat's arm and walked back to where Waste was waiting. "I'll be back."

The droid looked at her with an expression the doctor interpreted as alarm, "Dr Cody? Where are you going?"

The woman replied with determination, "I need to go up to the pilot station. I can run a bioscan using the ship's sensors to find any other survivors." She regarded the trio in front of her and crouched to look Sera in the eyes; when she smiled gently and reached out to her, the girl flinched and retreated a few steps closer to the imposing figure of Gat. _'Interesting development.' _"Sera, did you bring anything with you from the destroyer?"

The little girl scowled and retreated further behind Gat. She clutched her pack and reluctantly nodded when it was clear that the doctor lady wasn't going to back down. "Datapads, ration packs, socks, and random stuff I picked up."

"Was there anything you gave Gat?"

Sera dug her fingernails into her palms and breathed heavily, "Yes. I think it was an anti-toxin - and yes; I know that I should have trusted you but I don't."

Dr Cody nodded, whilst she didn't agree with the child's logic; she could understand it. "It's okay; you did what you thought was best. I promise I'll be back soon though and we'll be fine."

"I'll go with you." Gat and Waste declared in unison.

The girls exchanged a look and Sera was surprised to feel a pang of understanding for the independent doctor.

"No," Dr Cody said firmly, "Waste, I need you to stay here in case anyone comes here looking for help. Gat, please can you stay to make sure Sera is looked after."

The Devaronian looked like he was going to argue further and the droid looked reluctant as well. "That's an order Waste. Do you understand?"

"Yes of course - but in the present environment, I think it would be wiser if you simply allowed me to-" the droid protested until interrupted by Dr Cody, "I'll be fine Waste."

"Yes Doctor."

"Keep watch for survivors."

With that, Dr Cody turned and walked out the door.

-000-

Sera checked her pack one last time before slipping it on and tightening the straps.

"Miss Vane?"

Gat looked around at the droid's puzzled tone. He spied the youngster stretching her legs.

"What are you doing kid?" He asked. She rolled her eyes and sighed in irritation, "We need to leave _now_. We need weapons, food, and a way off this ship as soon as we can." Her tone implied that this should have been glaringly obvious to the pair of them.

"But the Doc said I need to keep an eye on ya."

"Well I'm going to find somewhere filled with a little less death." Sera began to walk out of the infirmary; when she realised the Devaronian wasn't coming she snorted and walked back to him. "If you come with me, then you can keep your promise to the pretty lady. Now get moving." Sera wrapped her fingers into the fabric of his shirt sleeve and dragged him from the room.

She glanced at the piles of corpses in the corridor and they walked the opposite way the doctor had gone. As the doors closed behind them, Sera swore she heard Waste say, "Well this is most irregular indeed. They never covered this in my training."

-000-

Zahara Cody hadn't gone too far before she realised the notion of finding any other survivors was an increasingly unlikely prospect.

She carefully stepped around the bodies, trying not to breathe too deeply when the stench threatened to become overwhelming. Almost immediately she wished she'd let Waste come with her. At least with his constant wittering would have been a welcome distraction.

Cody let out a sigh of relief when she reached the doors to the pilot station. She took a shaky breath and braced herself for whatever may lie within.

The Purge's flight crew still manned their posts; even in death. The pilot and co-pilot were sprawled backward in their chairs, hands still reaching for their consoles. Zahara shuddered and took another handful of steps into the room, knowing she would have to go all the way in to get to the computer.

As she approached their corpses, the computer sensed her and began whirring into action. A synthesised voice asked her for identification. "This is Chief Medical Officer Zahara Cody."

The console thanked her and scanned her to authenticate her identity and security clearance. The female voice advised Dr Cody the verification had been successful and it took the woman a few seconds to remember what the pilots had called her...ah yes; Tisa.

"Tisa, run a bioscan of the barge."

"Thank you. Running bioscan."

Zahara watched the console lights flash as the computer initiated the scan. There was a short pause before the scan was completed. "Imperial prison barge Purge, previous inmate and administrative census five hundred and twenty two-"

"Just tell me who's left." Zahara interrupted, keen to get on with it.

"Currently there are eight active life forms on board."

"_Eight_?"

"Correct." Zahara shook her head in disbelief; how could there be so few left? "That's impossible."

"Would you like me to adjust the variables and scan again?" The computer offered helpfully.

"Just what are the variables Tisa?"

"The scan is based on assessment of brainwaves, body temperature, heart rate, and motion."

The doctor thought for a moment, "But what about alien species whose body temp or pulse don't fit within those parameters? Would they still show on the bioscan?"

"Bioscan parameters are continually recalibrated to incorporate physiological traits of all inmates with an error rate of just 0.001%."

"Fine. Show me where these eight survivors are."

Tisa's holoscreen brightened and projected a glowing transparent wire frame model of the Purge. The pilot station occupied the Purge's uppermost level. At one end the docking tube was extended, still attached to the Destroyer like an umbilical. At the other end of the station was a wide gangway that lead down to the administration level that in turn was flanked on port and starboard by the escape pods. On the same level, at the opposite end of the ship was the infirmary, mess hall, and the guards' quarters. The six levels of the ship below constituted the varied strata of Gen. Pop. Even further below that, were numerous unlabelled hatches that led to the mysterious maintenance levels. In all Zahara did count only eight little dots of red light scattered throughout the 3D model of the ship.

Tisa was giving a running commentary on the blips that Dr Cody only half listened to. She could see there was one light in the pilot station and knew that was herself. Two more were between the mess hall and the infirmary; she presumed them to be Gat and Sera. A fourth was on the other side of the admin level. Two more blips were in detention level one; the final pair of red lights were in solitary.

Solitary.

Zahara hadn't even thought of solitary - where they kept the worst and most dangerous prisoners. But that isolated area was the most likely place to find someone who hadn't yet been exposed to the contagion.

She frowned, the question was, should she risk going down there in the first place?

Still, there were plenty of weapons lying about now; but it would be a good idea to bring backup.

She considered Gat for a moment, but dismissed the idea quickly - the girl from the Destroyer seemed reluctant to let him out of her sight for long, and she couldn't knowingly endanger a child.

"Tisa, can you patch me through to the infirmary please?"

"Acknowledged."

Zahara couldn't help but smile a little as the screen switched displays to show her the medbay and she saw Waste tidying up as best he could.

"Waste."

The droid looked up, "Oh, Dr Cody. Hello. Did you have any success with the bioscan?"

Zahara hesitated, not entirely sure if the knowledge she'd gained could be considered to be a success exactly. She decided that he didn't really need to know right now. "I'm going down to solitary; can you meet me there?"

"Of course Dr Cody." The 2-1B paused, "Dr Cody?"

"Yes Waste?"

"How many survivors are there?"

Zahara sighed and looked back at the map of the ship, "Eight, including myself, Gat, and Sera."

"I see." The droid replied quietly. "Well I suppose I'll meet you down there then."

"See you there." With that, Zahara turned and hurried out of the pilot station.

-000-

As Sera had been following Gat to the mess hall, she had been scavenging as best she could on the move.

Her stomach had that fluttery feeling again; there wouldn't be long left now.

She fiddled with a commlink that she'd taken from one of the numerous dead ICOs, setting it to send and receive on a wider frequency than its factory defaults.

"Here." She handed one up to Gat who was doing his best not to freak out in front of the kid.

They turned into the large mess hall area and stopped short. There were dozens of bodies scattered across the floor and draped on the tables. Sera shivered, but dashed ahead to the kitchen area.

She climbed over the counter and dropped into the server's station. There she found a couple dented, but still sealed, pre-pack dinners and she tossed them to Gat. She rummaged around in one of the durasteel units and pulled out a large metal frying pan.

She gripped the handle and gave it a few experimental swings. She grinned and vaulted back into the main mess hall, feeling a little more confident now she had a weapon and the prospect of some substantial food.

Sera pressed the button on the package to start it cooking and settled her own enhanced commlink into place.

Gat still couldn't entirely fathom how in the galaxy his nephew's friend could now seem so much more relaxed now everyone else was dead.

He picked up a blaster rifle from one of the Stormtroopers and listened to the crackle of the foil-wrapped packages and the staticky conversation the Doc was having with the ship's computer.

Sera tuned most of what was going on out as she tore open the meal pack. She already knew they were pretty much scragged no matter how many survivors the doctor found on the scan. It would all change soon enough anyway.

She scowled as she realised she hadn't picked up any cutlery to try and eat the blisteringly hot and unidentified 'meat'.

Sera jumped as a fork was waved in front of her face, she took it and dug in.

"Hey kid," Gat was still standing guard nearby, "I'm gonna go to meet up with the Doc too. You gonna be okay here for a bit?"

Sera bit back an insult; she'd been looking after herself since she was old enough to work out how to use a hack tool. Not to mention the past few weeks of living in a ventilation system.

"I'll be fine. Got my skillet." She managed between mouthfuls of food. When the Devaronian didn't leave, she huffed in frustration. Why did adults always assume she was a helpless, fragile flower? "Get going or you'll miss her." She flapped her hands in a shooing motion, "'sides, I'm gonna see if I can slice into the controls and get us all a way outta this death trap."

That was **mostly** true. Sera had no intentions of saving anyone but herself and Ra'at's Uncle Gat. Still, she could tell the chivalrous bastard wouldn't willingly leave behind the Doc either. But she'd only cross that bridge when she had to.

As Gat walked away, Sera called out, "Just make sure to keep in contact okay; I can't contact your Doctor directly, so I'll have to go through you okay."

Gat nodded and left the mess hall. Sera rolled her eyes; adults were incredibly dumb. Still, she could see where Ra'at had gotten his mannerisms and protective nature from now.

As she debated whether to eat the second MRE now; or make room for it in her pack, Sera spied a tiny Corrections Officer lying on the floor...his boots looked like they might be small enough for her if she was lucky...

"So, Gat. How did you end up on the wrong side of the Empire?" Sera wiggled her toes in her new boots; she'd only needed to pad them with an additional pair of socks and she was feeling good.

"I was picked up for mining violations. I was working on an official strike day." Gat's voice rumbled in her ear as her fingers flew across the screen of the datapad she'd hooked into a control panel.

"Well that's a bit disappointing. I was expecting something more exciting from the infamous uncle Ra'at told me about." Sera teased. _'There, in at last!'_

She had sliced into data feeds from all over the ship and was streaming them all to the datapad she'd taken from what she presumed to be one of the engineers. It was much newer than she'd hoped for and had made getting past the firewalls and security protocols child's play.

She flicked through the security camera footage, searching for anyone still alive. "Hey there Gat! Wave for the camera!"

Sera laughed as the Devaronian made a rude gesture at the camera up on the wall by the turbolift to the detention levels. "Well that's more like it."

She moved to the next set of cameras on this level, pretty sure that Gat was safe for now.

She almost missed the flash of movement and had to scroll back.

There were two figures heading down a corridor; both were smaller than Gat, and both boys were dressed in the same style of prison uniform of cloth shirt and trousers.

She cursed when she saw where they were headed.

"Sera, what's wrong?" Gat demanded, sounding worried and frustrated.

Sera glanced back at the selection of camera feeds, to see he was inside the lift so couldn't come to her rescue.

"Nothing's wrong that I can't handle." She unplugged the pad and tucked it into one of the large pockets of the jacket she had also liberated from one of the engineers. Sera ignored the growls coming from Gat and jogged out of the opposite side of the mess hall; intent on stopping the two prisoners - that was _her _escape pod dammit; she'd seen it first!


	19. Solitary

Zahara took the closest turbolift down into the lowest inhabitable level of the ship. She'd only been down there maybe once or twice on this journey to see to prisoners that were too dangerous to be taken up to the infirmary.

When the lift doors opened, she stepped out and immediately had to duck under exposed wires dangling from the ceiling. The lights were flickering as well and the doctor sighed.

Clearly the main power circuits didn't work so well here in the bowels of the Purge.

From somewhere nearby, she could hear the constant hissing of a leaking steam vent, which only added to the damp and humid stink of the recycled air down here. Zahara couldn't see any sign of Waste anywhere and she didn't know whether to carry on toward the cells; or to wait by the turbolift.

"Oh!" Zahara was jolted out of her thoughts as she tripped and started to fall forward. She caught herself before landing on the corridor floor and looked down.

She had stumbled over the corpse of one of the guards. She counted five dead bodies in total. All bar one had been wearing full isolation suits and masks.

The one exception was a young guard she recognised from a few weeks ago when he'd come to see her about a mild allergic reaction he'd had to one of the alien species on his watch.

He'd been nice enough and they'd had a few pleasant conversations about his life and his family back on Chandrila. From what she remembered, he'd been married with a handful of children and one on the way. He'd been hoping to get home in time for his latest child's birth.

Zahara noticed a sheet of flimsiplast clutched in one fist. She knelt beside him and started to read the note:

/Kai:

I know I told you and the kids that I would be home after this last run - but that's not going to happen. I am sorry to say that something has gone wrong on the barge. Everyone is getting sick and nobody knows why. Almost everybody has died so far. At first, I thought I was going to be okay, but now it looks like I have it too.

I am so sorry Kai. I know this is going to be hard on the boys. Will you please tell them their daddy loves them? I am so, so sorry this is how things turned out, but tell them I served to the best of my abilities, that I was not a coward and never scared.

I love you with all of my heart./

Zahara saw he'd tried to sign his name at the bottom of the letter, but it was little better than a scribble. It seemed that by the time he'd finished the letter to his wife; the damned sickness had finished him.

Dr Cody folded the note and slipped it into the breast pocket of her uniform jacket, nestled next to the precious vial of anti-virus. She wasn't entirely sure what prompted her to take the letter, she wasn't entirely sure that she'd live long enough to get off this ship, let alone all the way to Chandrila.

Zahara took the key card from the dead guard and stood before heading to the door marked'SOLITARY'.

'Where's Waste?' She thought, 'I gave him plenty of time to get down here. He's usually so prompt.' A cold and terrible thought all but galloped through her usually logical mind - /something has happened to him./

Sometimes she really hated that voice. The voice that was seldom wrong.

Zahara wondered if she should carry on. Suddenly coming down here alone and unarmed, seemed like the worst idea she'd had since signing up to be the Chief Medical Officer on this Force-damned vessel.

/You've come this far...what's a few more steps?/

With a palpable aura of reluctance, Dr Cody bent down over the guard again and gingerly took his blaster.

She, like all of the staff, had taken a small arms course in preparation for this very eventuality. Nevertheless, the weapon felt heavy, cold, and alien in her hands. After a few moments, she found the safety and switched the blaster's setting to 'stun'.

No matter who was down here, no matter what they'd done; she was a doctor first and foremost, and she held her vow of 'do no harm' very seriously.

Now she hoped that any survivors down here would take that into consideration if she let them out.

-000-

Gat tapped one booted foot impatiently, that bloody kid had scared the life outta him when she'd yelled like that. He wasn't entirely sure if he believed everything really was alright; but it was too late to go back now.

He checked his rifle again, lord knew he wasn't adverse to firearms; he was just out of practice and hoped he wouldn't end up shooting himself in the foot if he had to attempt a rescue.

"I'm sure that would /really/ impress the Doc." He muttered.

"Hey, Gat?"

"Yeah?"

"Do you fancy Dr Cody?"

The Devaronian stammered and Sera thought he might actually be blushing, although with his red skin, it was hard to tell.

"You know your rifle's set to stun right?"

"I /am/ aware." He scrubbed his free hand over his face, "I'm not a killer - at least not if I can help it."

Sera paused at the junction of two corridors; perhaps he /really/ was only in here for something as dumb as being caught working where he shouldn't.

She flicked back to her map and started down the left branch of the corridor.

A surprisingly descriptive strung of curses lit up her comm unit and Sera couldn't help but laugh, "I don't think that's even anatomically possible old man."

Gat swore again, he'd forgotten the crazy kid could speak his native Deveronese.

"Sorry." He poked the door release button again, but the little red light refused to turn green, and the doors refused to open.

"It's on lockdown. Gimme a sec and I'll get that open for you."

In the time it took Gat to process her comment; Sera had overridden the security code and the turbolift doors whooshed open.

"You should find the next set of lifts down the corridor to your right, they're off security lockdown now too."

"Uh...thank you?"

"My goodness, whoever said manners were dead should meet you." Sera snorted. "Anyway, I promised to deliver you Ra'at's band, which I did. But I would feel like I'd done half a job if you died down here, so I have a plan."

Gat listened with half an ear as he walked to the next bank of turbolifts. The kid's chatter was making the endless silence of this dead barge a little less harrowing.

"So there's a couple of escape pods on this ship, and we're going to get on one and get the frack out of here."

Sera sighed, there could be room enough for three, but she didn't want to raise her hopes just yet. There was still the issue of the two inmates heading toward /her/ way out.

It had been a long time since she'd had to fight, but some things you never forgot.

-000-

Zahara stood in front of the three solitary confinement cells. Each door was a huge metal coffin-sized affair with the key card slot almost too high for her to reach easily while still being able to aim the blaster at the occupant.

She could almost taste her fear, a sour and coppery sensation like she'd been sucking on pennies.

Zahara took a shaky breath and stepped up to the first door and fumbled a little getting the card into the slot.

The door opened more quickly than she'd anticipated and she jumped backward. A quick glance inside reassured her that the cell was empty.

There was nothing more threatening in there than a bunk, fold down table, and a simple 'fresher.

She stepped back and went to door number two. Zahara slotted in the card-

The cry of surprise and rage from inside was almost inhuman in its intensity and Zahara stumbled back; blaster suddenly feeling clumsy and she couldn't bring her hand up in time.

The thing coming out of the cell was enormous; having to duck and twist to get its huge frame out of the cell door. All Zahara took in in her panic was the sharp white teeth and eyes gleaming with intelligence.

She tried to tell it to stop, but the words couldn't fight their way past the knot of terror in her throat.

The creature stopped and raised its shaggy head to look at her. Her panic eased as she saw it was a wookiee and not one of the monsters some of her dying patients had raved about in their final moments.

Zahara cleared her throat and tried again, "Stay there!" She backed away and opened the second cell, belatedly wondering how in the world she was going to hold both inmates at bay with a single blaster.

The muffled pounding on the cell door ceased as the metal door slid aside. Dr Cody glanced back at the wookiee, but it hadn't moved; all of its attention was focussed on the other cell.

She looked back into the other cell at the emerging inmate.

He was a human male, probably in his late twenties, dressed in those ill-fitting prison uniforms.

His dark brown hair was mussed like he'd just woken up, and he looked at her with curiosity is those dark eyes. "What's going on down here?"

"I'm the Chief Medical Officer, Dr Cody -"

"So you aren't here with dinner?"

Zahara was nonplussed. She'd expected hostility or confusion; but this carefree and quite frankly cavalier attitude was certainly derailing her plans.

"What? No!" She raised her blaster, "I'm afraid there's been an incident."

The wookiee let out a low, rumbling bray that Zahara could physically feel in her chest.

"Okay, okay!" The man said, "Just out the blaster down will ya? You're making Chewie nervous."

"Chewie?"

"Yeah. Chewbacca, my copilot." The man stepped further into the light, a roguish half-smile on his face, "I'm Han Solo."


End file.
